Reading Fallen
by Perkyhorses
Summary: Arraine is given the book Fallen and is told to read it with Daniel and Cam wile Luce is sleeping. Lets see what happens.
1. Chapter 1

Reading Fallen, By Lauren Kate

**(I do not own Fallen. Everything belongs to Lauren Kate!)**

Arriane walked in the room with a book in her hand. "I found this book Daniel." He stands up

and walks over to her and looks at the book. The cover has a picture of a girl wearing a strapless

black dress in the woods crying into her hands. The girl had midnight black hair and very pale

skin. The title read "Fallen". "It's a book." He says. Arraine rolls her eyes. "It's not just any book.

It's about Luce." He looks confused " What are you talking about?" She hands him the book.

"It's about Luce. It's about what is going to happen. The Bookkeeper gave it to me. She said to

read it with you and Cam." His eyes widen at this. The Bookkeeper is a powerful prophet. She

turns her prophecies into books. The fact that this book is about Luce is not necessarily a good

thing. Cam walks into the room. "OK lets read this thing." Unable to refuse what the prophet

has told them to do, they all sit down in a circle. "Luce is in bed sleeping like a baby. She won't

be able to walk in on us reading her future." Arraine says handing Daniel the book. "You first."

So He opens the book and starts to read:

**IN THE BEGINNING  
HELSTON, ENGLAND  
SEPTEMBER 1854**

Everybody looks at each other. Then Daniel continues to read.

**Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape. The look in them was feline, half  
**

**determined and half tentative, all trouble. Yes, they were just right, those eyes.  
**

**Rising up to her fine, elegant brow, inches from the dark cascade of her hair.  
**

**He held the paper at arm's length to assess his progress. It was hard, working  
**

**without her in front of him, but then, he never could sketch in her presence. Since  
**

**he had arrived from London, no, since he had first seen her, he'd had to be  
**

**careful always to keep her at a distance.**

At this Daniel frowned. He never did like staying away from her.**  
**

**Every day now she approached him, and every day was more difficult than the one  
**

**before. It was why he was leaving in the morning, for India, for the Americas, he  
**

**didn't know or care. Wherever he ended up, it would be easier than being here.  
**

**He leaned over the drawing again, sighing as he used his thumb to perfect the  
**

**smudged charcoal pout of her full bottom lip. This lifeless paper, cruel imposter,  
**

**was the only way to take her with him.**

Arrain looked sadly at Daniel. Cam just listened with no emotion in his face.**  
**

**Then, straightening up in the leather library chair, he felt it. That brush of warmth  
**

**on the back of his neck.  
**

**Her.  
**

**Her mere proximity gave him the most peculiar sensation, like the kind of heat sent  
**

**out when a log shatters to ash in a fire. He knew without turning around: She was  
**

**there. He covered her likeness on the bound papers in his lap, but he could not  
**

**escape her.  
**

**His eyes fell on the ivory-upholstered settee across the parlor, where only hours  
**

**earlier she'd turned up unexpectedly, later than the rest of her party, in a rose silk  
**

**gown, to applaud the eldest daughter of their host after a fine turn at the  
**

**harpsichord. He glanced across the room, out the window to the veranda, where the  
**

**day before she'd crept up on him, a fistful of wild white peonies in her hand. She  
**

**still thought the pull she felt toward him was innocent, that their frequent  
**

**rendezvous in the gazebo were merely ... happy coincidences. To be so naive! He  
**

**would never tell her otherwise, the secret was his to bear.  
**

**He stood and turned, the sketches left behind on the leather chair. And there she  
**

**was, pressed against the ruby velvet curtain in her plain white dressing gown. Her  
**

**black hair had fallen from its braid. The look on her face was the same as the one  
**

**he'd sketched so many times. There was the fire, rising in her cheeks. Was she  
**

**angry? Embarrassed? He longed to know, but could not allow himself to ask.  
**

"**What are you doing here?" He could hear the snarl in his voice, and regretted its  
**

**sharpness, knowing she would never understand.  
**

"**I..I couldn't sleep," she stammered, moving toward the fire and his chair. "I saw  
**

**the light in your room and then," she paused, looking down at her hands", your  
**

**trunk outside the door. Are you going somewhere?"  
**

"**I was going to tell you," He broke off. He shouldn't lie. He had never intended  
**

**to let her know his plans. Telling her would only make things worse. Already, he  
**

**had let things go too far, hoping this time would be different.  
**

**She drew nearer, and her eyes fell on his sketchbook. "You were drawing me?"  
**

**Her startled tone reminded him how great the gap was in their understanding. Even  
**

**after all the time they'd spent together these past few weeks, she had not yet begun  
**

**to glimpse the truth that lay behind their attraction.  
**

**This was good, or at least, it was for the better. For the past several days, since  
**

**he'd made the choice to leave, he'd been struggling to pull away from her. The  
**

**effort took so much out of him that, as soon as he was alone, he had to give in to  
**

**his pent-up desire to draw her. He had filled up his book with pages of her arched  
**

**neck, her marble collarbone, the black abyss of her hair.  
**

**Now, he looked back at the sketch, not ashamed at being caught drawing her, but  
**

**worse. A cold chill spread through him as he realized that her discovery, the  
**

**exposure of his feelings, would destroy her. He should have been more careful. It  
**

**always began like this.  
**

"**Warm milk with a spoonful of treacle," he murmured, his back still to her. Then  
**

**he added sadly, "It helps you sleep."  
**

"**How did you know? Why, that's exactly what my mother used to,"  
**

"**I know," he said, turning to face her. The astonishment in her voice did not  
**

**surprise him, yet he could not explain to her how he knew, or tell her how many  
**

**times he had administered this very drink to her in the past when the shadows  
**

**came, how he had held her until she fell asleep.  
**

**He felt her touch as though it were burning through his shirt, her hand laid gently**

**on his shoulder, causing him to gasp. They had not yet touched in this life, and the  
**

**first contact always left him breathless.  
**

"**Answer me," she whispered. "Are you leaving?"  
**

"**Yes."  
**

"**Then take me with you," she blurted out. Right on cue, he watched her suck in her  
**

**breath, wishing to take back her plea. He could see the progression of her emotions  
**

**settle in the crease between her eyes: She would feel impetuous, then bewildered,  
**

**then ashamed by her own forwardness. She always did this, and too many times  
**

**before, he had made the mistake of comforting her at this exact moment.  
**

"**No," he whispered, remembering ... always remembering... "I sail tomorrow. If  
**

**you care for me at all, you won't say another word."  
**

"**If I care for you," she repeated, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "I…  
**

**I love,"  
**

"**Don't."  
**

"**I have to say it. I…I love you, I'm quite sure, and if you leave,"  
**

"**If I leave, I save your life." He spoke slowly, trying to reach a part of her that  
**

**might remember. Was it there at all, buried somewhere, "Some things are more  
**

**important than love. You won't understand, but you have to trust me."  
**

**Her eyes drilled into him. She stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest.  
**

**This was his fault, too, he always brought out her contemptuous side when he  
**

**spoke down to her.  
**

"**You mean to say there are things more important than this?" she challenged,  
**

**taking his hands and drawing them to her heart.  
**

**Oh, to be her and not know what was coming! Or at least to be stronger than he  
**

**was and be able to stop her. If he didn't stop her, she would never learn, and the  
**

**past would only repeat itself, torturing them both again and again.  
**

**The familiar warmth of her skin under his hands made him tilt his head back and  
**

**moan. He was trying to ignore how close she was, how well he knew the feel of  
**

**her lips on his, how bitter he felt that all of this had to end. But her fingers traced  
**

**his so lightly. He could feel her heart racing through her thin cotton gown.  
**

**She was right. There was nothing more than this. There never was. He was about  
**

**to give in and take her in his arms when he caught the look in her eyes. As if she'd  
**

**seen a ghost.  
**

**She was the one to pull away, a hand to her forehead.  
**

"**I'm having the strangest sensation," she whispered.  
**

**No, was it already too late?  
**

**Her eyes narrowed into the shape in his sketch and she came back to him, her  
**

**hands on his chest, her lips parted expectantly. "Tell me I'm mad, but I swear I've  
**

**been right here before..."  
**

**So it was too late. He looked up, shivering, and could feel the dark descending. He  
**

**took one last chance to seize her, to hold her as tightly as he'd been yearning to for  
**

**weeks.  
**

**As soon as her lips melted into his, both of them were powerless. The honeysuckle  
**

**taste of her mouth made him dizzy. The closer she pressed against him, the more  
**

**his stomach churned with the thrill and the agony of it all. Her tongue traced his,  
**

**and the fire between them burned brighter, hotter, more powerful with every new  
**

**touch, every new exploration. Yet none of it was new.  
**

**The room quaked. An aura around them started to glow.  
**

**She noticed nothing, was aware of nothing, understood nothing besides their kiss.  
**

**He alone knew what was about to happen, what dark companions were prepared to  
**

**fall on their reunion. Even though he was unable to alter the course of their lives  
**

**yet again, he knew.  
**

**The shadows swirled directly overhead, so close, he might have touched them. So  
**

**close, he wondered whether she could hear what they were whispering. He  
**

**watched as the cloud passed over her face. For a moment he saw a spark of  
**

**recognition growing in her eyes.  
**

**Then there was nothing, nothing at all.**

Daniel stopped reading and handed the book to Arraine. He can't believe he had just read one of the worst moments of his life to Arraine and Cam. " It's ok. It had to come out. Besides it is part of the story." Arraine assured him. He nodded and she began to read.

**(A/N) Sorry there wasn't much talking. The next one will be better I promise! It was just too emotional this chapter for anyone to talk. It would have been disrespectful. Please review! Flames are accepted!**


	2. Chapter 2

Reading Fallen

Chapter 2

**ONE  
PERFECT STRANGERS  
**

**Luce barged into the fluorescent-lit lobby of the Sword & Cross School ten  
**

**minutes later than she should have. A barrel-chested attendant with ruddy cheeks  
**

**and a clipboard clamped under an iron bicep was already giving orders, which  
**

**meant Luce was already behind.**

Arraine just sighed, "Luce. Ha ha."**  
**

"**So remember, it's meds, beds, and reds," the attendant barked at a cluster of three  
**

**other students all standing with their backs to Luce. "Remember the basics and no  
**

**one gets hurt."  
**

**Luce hurried to slip in behind the group. She was still trying to figure out whether  
**

**She'd filled out the giant stack of paperwork correctly, whether this shaven-headed  
**

**guide standing before them was a man or a woman**

Everyone laughed at that.

Arraine:"It is hard to tell at first!"

Cam: "You got that right."

**, whether there was anyone to help her with this enormous duffel bag, whether her parents **

**were going to get rid ****o****Bottom of Form**

**f her beloved Plymouth Fury the minute they arrived home from **

**dropping her off  
**

**here. They'd been threatening to sell the car all summer, and now they had a  
**

**reason even Luce couldn't argue with: No one was allowed to have a car at Luce's  
**

**new school. Her new reform school, to be precise.  
**

**She was still getting used to the term.  
**

"**Could you, uh, could you repeat that?" she asked the attendant, "What was it,  
**

**meds?"  
**

"**Well, look what the storm blew in," the attendant said loudly, then continued,  
**

**enunciating slowly: "Meds. If you're one of the medicated students, this is where  
**

**you go to keep yourself doped up, sane, breathing, whatever." Woman, Luce  
**

**decided, studying the attendant. No man would be catty enough to say all that in  
**

**such a saccharine tone of voice.**

Arraine: "That is so true."

Cam: *nods his head eyes wide***  
**

"**Got it." Luce felt her stomach heave. "Meds."  
**

**She'd been off meds for years now. After the accident this past summer, Dr.  
**

**Sanford, her specialist in Hopkinton, and the reason her parents had sent her to  
**

**boarding school all the way in New Hampshire, had wanted to consider  
**

**medicating her again. Though she'd finally convinced him of her quasi-stability, it  
**

**had taken an extra month of analysis on her part just to stay off those awful  
**

**antipsychotics.**

Arraine: "Luce was on antipsychotics?"

Daniel:" why would she be on meds? That doesn't make sence."

Cam: "Arraine keep reading and we may find out."

Arraine: nods and continues reading.**  
**

**Which was why she was enrolling in her senior year at Sword & Cross a full **

**month after the academic year had begun. Being a new student was bad enough,  
**

**and Luce had been really nervous about having to jump into classes where  
**

**everyone else was already settled. But from the looks of this tour, she wasn't the  
**

**only new kid arriving today.  
**

**She sneaked a peek at the three other students standing in a half circle around her.  
**

**At her last school, Dover Prep, the campus tour on the first day was where she'd  
**

**met her best friend, Callie. On a campus where all the other students had  
**

**practically been weaned together, it would have been enough that Luce and Callie  
**

**were the only non-legacy kids. But it didn't take long for the two girls to realize  
**

**they also had the exact same obsession with the exact same old movies, especially  
**

**where Albert Finney was concerned.**

Daniel: frowns at that comment.

Cam: laughs at Daniel's expression

**After their discovery freshman year while  
**

**watching Two for the Road that neither one of them could make a bag of popcorn  
**

**without setting off the fire alarm,**

Everyone laughs at that.

**Callie and Luce hadn't left each other's sides.  
**

**Until ...until they'd had to.  
**

**At Luce's sides today were two boys and a girl. The girl seemed easy enough to  
**

**figure out, blond and Neutrogena-commercial pretty, with pastel pink manicured  
**

**nails that matched her plastic binder.**

Everyone: "Gabbe" everyone said in unison. **  
**

"**I'm Gabbe," she drawled, flashing Luce a big smile that disappeared as quickly as  
**

**it had surfaced, before Luce could even offer her own name. The girl's waning  
**

**interest reminded her more of a southern version of the girls at Dover than  
**

**someone she'd expect at Sword & Cross.**

Arraine: chuckles

**Luce couldn't decide whether this was  
**

**comforting or not, any more than she could imagine what a girl who looked like  
**

**this would be doing at reform school.  
**

**To Luce's right was a guy with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a smattering of  
**

**freckles across his nose. But the way he wouldn't even meet her eyes, just kept  
**

**picking at a hangnail on his thumb, gave Luce the impression that, like her, he was  
**

**probably still stunned and embarrassed to find himself here.  
**

**The guy to her left, on the other hand, fit Luce's image of this place a little bit too  
**

**perfectly.**

Daniel and Arraine look at Cam. Cam just shrugs.

**He was tall and thin, with a Di bag slung over his shoulder, shaggy black  
**

**hair, and large, deep-set green eyes. His lips were full and a natural rose color most  
**

**girls would kill for. At the back of his neck, a black tattoo in the shape of a  
**

**sunburst seemed almost to glow on his light skin, rising up from the edge of his  
**

**black T-shirt.  
**

**Unlike the other two, when this guy turned to meet her gaze, he held it and didn't  
**

**let go. His mouth was set in a straight line, but his eyes were warm and alive. He  
**

**gazed at her, standing as still as a sculpture, which made Luce feel rooted to her  
**

**spot, too. She sucked in her breath. Those eyes were intense, and alluring, and,  
**

**well, a little bit disarming.**

Daniel: "Why do you have to do that?"

Cam: " I mustn't let anyone resist my charm. Unlike someone in this room" chuckles

Daniel: glares **  
**

**With some loud throat-clearing noises, the attendant interrupted the boy's  
**

**trancelike stare. Luce blushed and pretended to be very busy scratching her head.  
**

"**Those of you who've learned the ropes are free to go after you dump your  
**

**hazards." The attendant gestured at a large cardboard box under a sign that said in  
**

**big black letters PROHIBITED MATERIALS, "And when I say free, Todd, "she ****c****Bottom of Form**

**lamped **

**a hand down on the freckled kid's shoulder, making him jump. "I mean  
**

**gymnasium-bound to meet your preassigned student guides. You, "she pointed at**

**Luce ",dump your hazards and stay with me."  
**

**The four of them shuffled toward the box and Luce watched, baffled, as the other  
**

**students began to empty their pockets. The girl pulled out a three-inch pink Swiss  
**

**Army knife. **

Arraine: " I love that thing."

Daniel: chuckles

**The green-eyed guy reluctantly dumped a can of spray paint and a box  
**

**cutter. Even the hapless Todd let loose several books of matches and a small  
**

**container of lighter fluid. Luce felt almost stupid that she wasn't concealing a  
**

**hazard of her own,**

Daniel: shakes his head

Arrain: Laughs, "what would she do with one? It's not like she would know how to use it!"

Daniel: *sighs*

**but when she saw the other kids reach into their pockets and  
**

**chuck their cell phones into the box, she gulped.  
**

**Leaning forward to read the PROHIBITED MATERIALS sign a little more  
**

**closely, she saw that cell phones, pagers, and all two-way radio devices were  
**

**strictly forbidden. It was bad enough that she couldn't have her car! Luce clamped  
**

**a sweaty hand around the cell phone in her pocket, her only connection to the  
**

**outside world. When the attendant saw the look on her face, Luce received a few  
**

**quick slaps on the cheek. "Don't swoon on me, kid, they don't pay me enough to  
**

**resuscitate. Besides, you get one phone call once a week in the main lobby."  
**

**One phone call ... once a week? But?  
**

**She looked down at her phone one last time and saw that she'd received two new  
**

**text messages. It didn't seem possible that these would be her two last text  
**

**messages. The  
**

**first one was from Callie.  
**

_**Call immediately! Will be waiting by the phone all nite so be ready to dish. And  
**_

_**remember the mantra I assigned you. You'll survive! BYW, for what it's worth, I  
**_

_**think everyone's totally forgotten about ...**_**  
**

**In typical Callie fashion, she'd gone on so long that Luce's crap cell phone cut the  
**

**message off four lines in. In a way, Luce was almost relieved. She didn't want to  
**

**read about how everyone from her old school had already forgotten what had  
**

**happened to her, what she'd done to land herself in this place.**

Arraine: "What could she have possibly done? Luce couldn't harm a fly."

Cam: " If you would just read we will find out!" rolls his eyes**  
**

**She sighed and scrolled down to her second message. It was from her mom, who'd  
**

**only just gotten the hang of texting a few weeks ago, and who surely had not  
**

**known about this one-call-once-a-week thing or she would never have abandoned  
**

**her daughter here. Right?  
**

_**Kiddo, we are always thinking of you. Be good and try to eat enough protein. We'll  
**_

_**talk when we can. Love, M&D  
**_

**With a sigh, Luce realized her parents must have known. How else to explain their  
**

**drawn faces when she'd waved goodbye at the school gates this morning, duffel  
**

**bag in hand? At breakfast, she'd tried to joke about finally losing that appalling  
**

**New England accent she'd picked up at Dover, but her parents hadn't even cracked  
**

**a smile.**

Arraine: " I don't get her parents! Why can't they at least try to make her feel better? Ugh!"

Cam: "Just freaking read the chapter! Damn woman!"

Arraine: rolls her eyes

Daniel: laughs at cam's outrage

Cam: glares at Daniel

**She'd thought they were still mad at her. They never did the whole raising-their-  
**

**voice thing, which meant that when Luce really messed up, they just gave her  
**

**the old silent treatment. Now she understood this morning's strange demeanor: Her  
**

**parents were already mourning the loss of contact with their only daughter.  
**

"**We're still waiting on one person," the attendant sang. "I wonder who it is."**

Arraine: "B-I-T-C-H!"**  
**

**Luce's attention snapped back to the Hazard Box, which was now brimming with  
**

**contraband she didn't even recognize. She could feel the dark-haired boy's green  
**

**eyes staring at her. She looked up and noticed that everyone was staring. Her turn.  
**

**She closed her eyes and slowly opened her fingers, letting her phone slip from her  
**

**grasp and land with a sad **_**thunk**_** on top of the heap. The sound of being all alone.  
**

**Todd and the fembot Gabbe headed for the door without so much as a look in  
**

**Luce's direction, but the third boy turned to the attendant.  
**

"**I can fill her in," he said, nodding at Luce.  
**

"**Not part of our deal," the attendant replied automatically, as if she'd been  
**

**expecting this dialogue. "You're a new student again, that means new-student  
**

**restrictions. Back to square one. You don't like it, you should have thought twice  
**

**before breaking parole."  
**

**The boy stood motionless, expressionless, as the attendant tugged Luce, who'd  
**

**stiffened at the word "parole", toward the end of a yellowed hall.**

Cam: smirks

Arraine: punches him

Cam: "owe what was that for!" rubbing his sholder

Arraine: "for being an ass!"**  
**

"**Moving on," she said, as if nothing had just happened. "Beds." She pointed out  
**

**the west-facing window to a distant cinder-block building. Luce could see Gabbe  
**

**and Todd shuffling slowly toward them, with the third boy walking slowly, as if  
**

**catching up to them were the last thing on his list of things to do.  
**

Daniel: cocks his eyebrow

Cam: shrugs "It most likely was."

**T****Bottom of Form**

**he dorm was formidable and square, a solid gray block of a building whose thick  
**

**double doors gave away nothing about the possibility of life inside them. A large  
**

**stone plaque stood planted in the middle of the dead lawn, and Luce remembered  
**

**from the Web site the words PAULINE DORMITORY chiseled into it. It looked  
**

**even uglier in the hazy morning sun than it had looked in the flat black-and-white  
**

**photograph.**

Everyone: nods their heads**  
**

**Even from this distance, Luce could see black mold covering the face of the dorm.  
**

**All ****the windows**** were obstructed by rows of thick steel bars. She squinted. Was  
**

**that barbed wire topping the fence around the building?  
**

**The attendant looked down at a chart, flipping through Luce's file. "Room sixty-three.  
**

**Throw your bag in my office with the rest of them for now. You can unpack  
**

**this afternoon."  
**

**Luce dragged her red duffel bag toward three other nondescript black trunks. Then  
**

**she reached reflexively for her cell phone, where she usually keyed in things she  
**

**needed to remember. But as her hand searched her empty pocket, she sighed and  
**

**committed the room number to memory instead.  
**

**She still didn't see why she couldn't just stay with her parents; their house in  
**

**Thunderbolt was less than a half hour from Sword & Cross. It had felt so good to  
**

**be back home in Savannah, where, as her mom always said, even the wind blew  
**

**lazily. Georgia's softer, slower pace suited Luce way more than New England ever  
**

**had.  
**

**But Sword & Cross didn't feel like Savannah. It hardly felt like anywhere at all,  
**

**except the lifeless, colorless place where the court had mandated she board. She'd  
**

**overheard her dad on the phone with the headmaster the other day, nodding in his  
**

**befuddled biology-professor way and saying, "Yes, yes, maybe it would be best for  
**

**her to be supervised all the time. No, no, we wouldn't want to interfere with your  
**

**system."  
**

**Clearly her father had not seen the conditions of his only daughter's supervision.  
**

**This place looked like a maximum-security prison.  
**

Arraine: "That's because it is."

Cam: "Just read!"

Arraine: " OK geez don't get your panties in a bunch."

Daniel: laughs

Cam: Glares

"**And what about, what did you say, the reds?" Luce asked the attendant, ready to  
**

**be released from the tour.  
**

"**Reds," the attendant said, pointing toward a small wired device hanging from the  
**

**ceiling: a lens with a flashing red light. Luce hadn't seen it before, but as soon as  
**

**the attendant pointed the first one out, she realized they were everywhere.  
**

"**Cameras?"  
**

"**Very good," the attendant said, voice dripping condescension. "We make them  
**

**obvious in order to remind you. All the time, everywhere, we're watching you. So  
**

**don't screw up, that is, if you can help yourself."**

Daniel: glares at the book**  
**

**Every time someone talked to Luce like she was a total psychopath, she came that  
**

**much closer to believing it was true.  
**

**All summer, the memories had haunted her, in her dreams and in the rare moments  
**

**her parents left her alone. Something had happened in that cabin, and everyone  
**

**(including Luce) was dying to know exactly what. The police, the judge, the social  
**

**worker had all tried to pry the truth out of her, but she was as clueless about it all  
**

**as they were.**

Everyone: leans closer

**She and Trevor had been joking around the whole evening, chasing  
**

**each other down to the row of ****cabins on the lake****, away from the rest of the party.  
**

**She'd tried to explain that it had been one of the best nights of her life, until it  
**

**turned into the worst.  
**

**She'd spent so much time replaying that night in her head, hearing Trevor's laugh,  
**

**feeling his hands close around her waist, and trying to reconcile her gut instinct  
**

**that she really was innocent.  
**

**But now, every rule and regulation at Sword & Cross seemed to work against that  
**

**notion, seemed to suggest that she was, in fact dangerous and needed to be  
**

**controlled.  
**

**Luce felt a firm hand on her shoulder.  
**

"**Look," the attendant said. "If it makes you feel any better, you're far from the  
**

**worst case here."  
**

**It was the first humane gesture the attendant had made toward Luce, and she  
**

**believed that it was intended to make her feel better. But. She?d been sent here  
**

**because of the suspicious death of the guy she'd been crazy about, and still she was  
**

"**far from the worst case here?" Luce wondered what else exactly they were  
**

**dealing with at Sword & Cross.**

Cam: "A bunch of loonys." He said matter of factly.

Arraine: nods in agreement**  
**

"**Okay, orientation's over," the attendant said. "You're on your own now. Here's a  
**

**map if you need to find anything else." She gave Luce a photocopy of a crude  
**

**hand-drawn map, then glanced at her watch. "You've got an hour before your first  
**

**class, but my soaps come on in five, so, "she waved her hand at Luce. "make y****Bottom of Form****ourself **

**scarce. And don't forget," she said, pointing up at the cameras one last  
**

**time. "The reds are watching you."**

Cam and Arraine: "ooooo scary!"**  
**

**Before Luce could reply, a skinny, dark-haired girl appeared in front of her,  
**

**wagging her long fingers in Luce's face.  
**

"**Ooooooh," the girl taunted in a ghost-story-telling voice, dancing around Luce in  
**

**a circle. "The reds are watching youuuu."  
**

"**Get out of here, Arriane, before I have you lobotomized," the attendant said,  
**

**though it was clear from her first brief but genuine smile that she had some coarse  
**

**affection for the crazy girl.**

Arraine: "aww I'm touched."**  
**

**It was also clear that Arriane did not reciprocate the love. She mimed a jerking-off  
**

**motion at the attendant, then stared at Luce, daring her to be offended.  
**

"**And just for that," the attendant said, jotting a furious note in her book, "you've  
**

**earned yourself the task of showing Little Miss Sunshine around today."**

Arraine: "Didn't know that was a punishment."

Daniel: smiles**  
**

**She pointed at Luce, who looked anything but sunny in her black jeans, black  
**

**boots, and black top. Under the "Dress Code" section, the Sword & Cross Web site  
**

**had cheerily maintained that as long as the students were on good behavior, they  
**

**were free to dress as they pleased, with just two small stipulations: style must be  
**

**modest and color must be black. Some freedom.  
**

**The too-big mock turtleneck Luce's mom had forced on her this morning did  
**

**nothing for her curves, and even her best feature was gone: Her thick black hair,  
**

**which used to hang down to her waist, had been almost completely shorn off. The  
**

**cabin fire had left her scalp singed and her hairline patchy, so after the long, silent  
**

**ride home from Dover, Mom had planted Luce in the bathtub, brought out Dad's  
**

**electric razor, and wordlessly shaved her head. Over the summer, her hair had  
**

**grown out a little, just enough so that her once- enviable waves now hovered in  
**

**awkward twists just below her ears.  
**

**Arriane sized her up, tapping one finger against her pale lips. "Perfect," she said,  
**

**stepping forward to loop her arm through Luce's. "I was just thinking I could  
**

**really use a new slave."**

Daniel:"Arraine…"

Arraine: " I was only kidding! Geez Daniel lighten up!"**  
**

**The door to the lobby swung open and in walked the tall kid with green eyes. He  
**

**shook his head and said to Luce, "This place isn?t afraid to do a strip search. So if  
**

**you're packing any other hazards,"he raised an eyebrow and dumped a handful  
**

**of unrecognizables in the box, "save yourself the trouble."  
**

**Behind Luce, Arriane laughed under her breath. The boy's head shot up, and when  
**

**his eyes registered Arriane, he opened his mouth, then closed it, like he was unsure  
**

**how to proceed.  
**

"**Arriane," he said evenly.  
**

"**Cam," she returned.  
**

"**You know him?" Luce whispered,**

Cam: smiles

Daniel: frowns

**wondering whether there were the same kinds  
**

**of cliques in reform schools as there were in prep schools like Dover.  
**

"**Don't remind me," Arriane said, dragging Luce out the door into the gray and  
**

**swampy morning.  
**

**The back of the main building let out onto a chipped sidewalk bordering a messy  
**

**field. The grass was so overgrown, it looked more like a vacant lot than a school  
**

**commons, but a faded scoreboard and a small stack of wooden bleachers argued  
**

**otherwise.  
**

**Beyond the commons lay four severe-looking buildings: the cinder-block  
**

**dormitory on the far left, a huge old ugly church on the far right, and two other  
**

**expansive structures in between that Luce imagined were the classrooms.  
**

**This was it. Her whole world was reduced to the sorry sight before her eyes.  
**

**Arriane immediately veered right off the path and led Luce to the field, sitting her  
**

**down on top of one of the waterlogged wooden bleachers.  
**

**The corresponding setup at Dover had screamed Ivy League jock-in-training, so  
**

**Luce had always avoided hanging out there. But this empty field, with its rusted,  
**

**warped goals, told a very different story. One that wasn't as easy for Luce to figure  
**

**out. Three turkey vultures swooped overhead, and a dismal wind whipped through  
**

**the bare branches of the oak trees. Luce ducked her chin down into her mock  
**

**turtleneck.  
**

"**Soooo," Arriane said. "Now you've met Randy."  
**

"**I thought his name was Cam."**

Everyone: chuckles **  
**

"**We're not talking about him," Arriane said quickly. "I mean she-man in there."  
**

**Arriane jerked her head toward the office where they'd left the attendant in front of  
**

**the TV. "Whaddya think, dude or chick?"  
**

"**Uh, chick." Luce said tentatively. "Is this a test?"  
**

**Arriane cracked a smile. "The first of many. And you passed. At least, I think you  
**

**passed. The gender of most of the faculty here is an ongoing, schoolwide debate.  
**

**Don't worry, you'll get into it."  
**

**Luce thought Arriane was making a joke, in which case, cool. But this was all  
**

**such a huge change from Dover. At her old school, the green-tie-wearing, pomaded  
**

**future senators had practically oozed through the halls in the genteel hush that  
**

**money seemed to lay over everything.  
**

**More often than not, the other Dover kids gave Luce a don't-smudge-the-whitewalls-  
**

**with-your-fingerprints side ways glance. She tried to imagine Arriane there:  
**

**lazing on the bleachers, making a loud, crude joke in her peppery voice. Luce tried  
**

**to imagine what Callie might think of Arriane. There'd been no one like her at  
**

**Dover.**

Arraine: "Damn Strait! I am one of a kind!"

Cam: "JUST FUCKIN READ ALREADY!"

Arraine: " geez dude calm down!"**  
**

"**Okay, spill it," Arriane ordered. Plopping down on the top bleacher and  
**

**motioning for Luce to join her, she said, "What'd ya do to get in here?"  
**

**Arriane's tone was playful, but suddenly Luce had to sit down. It was ridiculous,  
**

**but she'd half expected to get through her first day of school without the past  
**

**creeping up and robbing her of her thin facade of calm. Of course people here were  
**

**going to want to know.  
**

**She could feel the blood thrumming at her temples. It happened whenever she tried  
**

**to think back, really think back, to that night. She'd never stop feeling guilty  
**

**about what had happened to Trevor, but she also tried really hard not to get mired  
**

**down in the shadows, which by now were the only things she could remember  
**

**about the accident.**

Silence.

Daniel: "What did she just say?" He looks shocked and scared

Arraine: froze "She can see…"

Cam: "This isn't suppose to happen. She can see the shadows?" eyes wide

Daniel: "Arraine. Keep reading."

**Those dark, indefinable things that she could never tell anyone  
**

**about.  
**

**Scratch that, she'd started to tell Trevor about the peculiar presence she'd felt that  
**

**night, about the twisting shapes hanging over their heads, threatening to mar their  
**

**perfect evening.**

Arraine: "She tried to tell someone?"

Cam: "That's what it just said now keep reading" anxious

**Of course, by then it was already too late. Trevor was gone, his  
**

**body burned beyond recognition, and Luce was ... was she ... guilty?  
**

**No one knew about the murky shapes she sometimes saw in the darkness. They'd  
**

**always come to her. They'd come and gone for so long that Luce couldn't even  
**

**remember the first time she'd seen them. But she could remember the first time she  
**

**realized that the shadows didn't come for everyone, or actually, anyone but her.  
**

Daniel: pulse racing and adrenalin pumping

**When she was seven, her family had been on vacation in Hilton Head and her  
**

**parents had taken her on a boat trip. It was just about sunset when the shadows  
**

**started rolling in over the water, and she'd turned to her father and said, "What do  
**

**you do when they come, Dad? Why aren't you afraid of the monsters?"  
**

**There were no monsters, her parents assured her, but Luce's repeated insistence on  
**

**the presence of something wobbly and dark had gotten her several appointments  
**

**with the family eye doctor, and then glasses, and then appointments with the ear  
**

**doctor after she made the mistake of describing the hoarse whooshing noise that  
**

**the shadows sometimes made, and then therapy, and then more therapy, and  
**

**finally the prescription for anti-psychotic medication.  
**

**But nothing ever made them go away.**

Arraine: " And nothing will."

Daniel: frowns**  
**

**By the time she was fourteen, Luce refused to take her meds. That was when they  
**

**found Dr. Sanford, and the Dover School nearby. They flew to New Hampshire,  
**

**and her father drove their rental car up a long, curved driveway to a hilltop  
**

**mansion called Shady Hollows. They planted Luce in front of a man in a lab coat  
**

**and asked her if she still saw her "visions." Her parents' palms were sweating as  
**

**they gripped her hands, brows furrowed with the fear that there was something  
**

**terribly wrong with their daughter.  
**

**No one came out and said that if she didn't tell Dr. Sanford what they all wanted  
**

**her to say, she might be seeing a whole lot more of Shady Hollows. When she lied  
**

**and acted normal, she was allowed to enroll at Dover, and only had to visit Dr.  
**

**Sanford twice a month.  
**

**Luce had been permitted to stop taking the horrible pills as soon as she started  
**

**pretending she didn't see the shadows anymore. But she still had no control over  
**

**when they might appear. All she knew was that the mental catalog of places where  
**

**they'd come for her in the past, dense forests, murky waters, became the places  
**

**she avoided at all costs. All she knew was that when the shadows came, they were  
**

**usually accompanied by a cold chill under her skin, a sickening feeling unlike  
**

**anything else.  
**

**Luce straddled one of the bleachers and gripped her temples between her thumbs  
**

**and middle fingers. If she was going to make it through today, she had to push her  
**

**past to the recesses of her mind. She couldn't stand probing the memory of that  
**

**night by herself, so there was no way she could air all the gruesome details to some  
**

**Weird, maniacal stranger.**

Arraine: laughs "Well thanks Luce I love you too!"

Daniel: chuckles

Cam: snorts.**  
**

**Instead of answering, she watched Arriane, who was lying back on the bleachers,  
**

**sporting a pair of enormous black sunglasses that covered the better part of her**

**face. It was hard to tell, but she must have been staring at Luce, too, because after a  
**

**second, she shot up from the bleachers and grinned.  
**

"**Cut my hair like yours," she said.  
**

"**What?" Luce gasped. "Your hair is beautiful."  
**

**It was true: Arriane had the long, thick locks that Luce so desperately missed. Her  
**

**loose black curls sparkled in the sunlight, giving off just a tinge of red. Luce  
**

**tucked her hair behind her ears, even though it still wasn't long enough to do  
**

**anything but flop back down in front of them.  
**

"**Beautiful schmootiful," Arriane said. "Yours is sexy, edgy. And I want it."  
**

"**Oh, um, okay," Luce said. Was that a compliment? She didn't know if she was  
**

**supposed to be flattered or unnerved by the way Arriane assumed she could have  
**

**whatever she wanted, even if what she wanted belonged to someone else.**

Arraine: smirks

Daniel: looks a Arraine and shakes his head

"**Whereare we going to get,"  
**

"**Ta-da!" Arriane reached into her bag and pulled out the pink Swiss Army knife  
**

**Gabbe had tossed into the Hazard Box. "What?" she said, seeing Luce's reaction.  
**

"**I always bring my sticky fingers on new-student drop-off days. The idea alone  
**

**gets me through the dog days of Sword & Cross internment ... er ... summer  
**

**camp."  
**

"**You spent the whole summer ... here?" Luce winced.  
**

"**Ha! Spoken like a true newbie. You're probably expecting a spring break." She  
**

**tossed Luce the Swiss Army knife. "We don't get to leave this hellhole. Ever. Now  
**

**cut."  
**

"**What about the reds?" Luce asked, glancing around with the knife in her hand.  
**

**There were bound to be cameras somewhere out here.  
**

**Arriane shook her head. "I refuse to associate with pansies. Can you handle it or  
**

**not?"**

Daniel: "That's a little harsh"

Arraine: "shut up"**  
**

**Luce nodded.  
**

"**And don't tell me you've never cut hair before." Arriane grabbed the Swiss Army  
**

**knife back from Luce, pulled out the scissor tool, and handed it back. "Not another  
**

**word until you tell me how fantastic I look."  
**

**In the "salon" of her parents' bathtub, Luce's mother had tugged the remains of her  
**

**long hair into a messy pony-tail before lopping the whole thing off. Luce was sure  
**

**there had to be a more strategic method of cutting hair, but as a lifelong haircut  
**

**avoider, the chopped-off pony was about all she knew. She gathered Arriane's hair  
**

**in her hands, wrapped an elastic band from her wrist around it, held the small  
**

**scissors firmly, and began to hack.  
**

**The ponytail fell to her feet and Arriane gasped and whipped around. She picked it  
**

**up and held it to the sun. Luce's heart constricted at the sight. She still agonized  
**

**over her own lost hair, and all the other losses it symbolized. But Arriane just let a  
**

**thin smile spread across her lips. She ran her fingers through the ponytail once,  
**

**then dropped it into her bag.  
**

"**Awesome," she said. "Keep going."  
**

"**Arriane," Luce whispered before she could stop herself. "Your neck. It's all,"  
**

"**Scarred." Arriane finished. "You can say it."  
**

**The skin on Arriane's neck, from the back of her left ear all the way down to her  
**

**collarbone, was jagged and marbled and shiny.**

Arraine: involuntarily touches her scars

**Luce's mind went to Trevor, to  
**

**those awful pictures. Even her own parents wouldn't look at her after they saw  
**

**them. She was having a hard time looking at Arriane now.  
**

**Arriane grabbed Luce's hand and pressed it to the skin. It was hot and cold at the  
**

**same time. It was smooth and rough.  
**

"**I'm not afraid of it," Arriane said. "Are you?"  
**

"**No," Luce said, though she wished Arriane would take her hand away so Luce  
**

**could take hers away, too. Her stomach churned as she wondered whether this was  
**

**how Trevor's skin would have felt.  
**

"**Are you afraid of who you really are, Luce?"  
**

"**No," Luce said again quickly. It must be so obvious that she was lying. She  
**

**closed her eyes. All she wanted from Sword & Cross was a fresh start, a place  
**

**where people didn't look at her the way Arriane was looking at her right now. At  
**

**the school's gates that morning, when her father had whispered the Price family  
**

**motto in her ear, "Prices never crash," it had felt possible, but already Luce felt  
**

**so run down and exposed. She tugged her hand away. "So how'd it happen?" she  
**

**asked, looking down.  
**

"**Remember how I didn't press you when you clammed up about what you did to**

**get here?" Arriane asked, raising her eyebrows.  
**

**Luce nodded.  
**

**Arriane gestured to the scissors. "Touch it up in the back, okay? Make me look real  
**

**P****Bottom of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**retty. Make me look like you."**

Arraine: "She is pretty. I don't know why she doesn't think so."

Daniel: "Low self-asteam. She has always had it"**  
**

**Even with the same exact cut, Arriane would still only look like a very  
**

**undernourished version of Luce. While Luce attempted to even out the first haircut  
**

**she'd ever given, Arriane delved into the complexities of life at Sword & Cross.  
**

"**That cell block over there is Augustine. It's where we have our so-called Social  
**

**events on Wednesday nights. And all of our classes," she said, pointing at a  
**

**building the color of yellowed teeth, two buildings to the right of the dorm. It  
**

**looked like it had been designed by the same sadist who'd done Pauline. It was  
**

**dismally square, dismally fortress-like, fortified by the same barbed wire and barred  
**

**windows. An unnatural-looking gray mist cloaked the walls like moss, making it  
**

**impossible to see whether anyone was over there.  
**

"**Fair warning," Arriane continued. "You're going to hate the classes here. You  
**

**Wouldn't be human if you didn't."  
**

"**Why? What's so bad about them?" Luce asked. Maybe Arriane just didn't like  
**

**school in general.**

Arraine:" HA"

**With her black nail polish, black eyeliner, and the black bag that  
**

**only seemed big enough to hold her new Swiss Army knife, she didn't exactly look  
**

**bookish.  
**

"**The classes here are soulless," Arriane said. "Worse, they'll strip you of your  
**

**soul. Of the eighty kids in this place, I'd say we've only got about three remaining  
**

**souls." She glanced up. "Unspoken for, anyway ..."  
**

**That didn't sound promising, but Luce was hung up on another part of Arriane's  
**

**answer. "Wait, there are only eighty kids in this whole school?" The summer  
**

**before she went to Dover, Luce had pored over the thick Prospective Students  
**

**handbook, memorizing all the statistics. But everything she'd learned so far about  
**

**Sword & Cross had surprised her, making her realize that she was coming into  
**

**reform school completely unprepared.  
**

**Arriane nodded, making Luce accidentally snip off a chunk of hair she'd meant to  
**

**leave. Whoops. Hopefully Arriane wouldn't notice, or maybe she'd just think it  
**

**was edgy.**

Daniel: chuckles

Arraine: "edgy. I like it."**  
**

"**Eight classes, ten kids a pop. You get to know everybody's crap pret-ty quickly,"  
**

**Arriane said. "And vice versa."  
**

"**I guess so," Luce agreed, biting her lip. Arriane was joking, but Luce wondered  
**

**whether she'd be sitting here with that cool smirk in her pastel blue eyes if she  
**

**knew the exact nature of Luce's backstory.**

Arraine: "Probably would."

**The longer Luce could keep her past  
**

**under wraps, the better off she'd be.  
**

"**And you'll want to steer clear of the hard cases."  
**

"**Hard cases?"  
**

"**The kids with the wristband tracking devices," Arriane said. "About a third of the  
**

**student body."  
**

"**And they're the ones who,"  
**

"**You don't want to mess with. Trust me."  
**

"**Well, what'd they do?" Luce asked.  
**

**As much as Luce wanted to keep her own story a secret, she didn't like the way  
**

**Arriane was treating her like some sort of ing¨¦nue. Whatever those kids had done  
**

**Couldn't be much worse than what everyone told her she had done. Or could it?  
**

**After all, she knew next to nothing about these people and this place. The  
**

**possibilities stirred up a cold gray fear in the pit of her stomach.  
**

"**Oh, you know," Arriane drawled. "Aided and abetted terrorist acts. Chopped up  
**

**their parents and roasted them on a spit." She turned around to wink at Luce.  
**

"**Shut up," Luce said.  
**

"**I'm serious. Those psychos are under much tighter restrictions than the rest of the  
**

**screwups here. We call them the shackled."  
**

**Luce laughed at Arriane's dramatic tone.  
**

"**Your haircut's done," she said, running her hands through Arriane's hair to fluff it  
**

**up a little. It actually looked really cool.  
**

Arraine: "Hell yeah it dose!" fluffs her hair

Cam: "OK ms. Vanity could you please continue with the story."

Daniel: "It's getting interesting."

"**Sweet," Arriane said. She turned to face Luce. When she ran her fingers through  
**

**her hair, the sleeves of her black sweater fell back on her forearms and Luce  
**

**caught a glimpse of a black wristband, dotted with rows of silver studs, and, on the  
**

**other wrist, another band that looked more ... mechanical. Arriane caught her  
**

**looking and raised her eyebrows devilishly.  
**

"**Told ya," she said. "Total effing psychos." She grinned. "Come on, I'll give you  
**

**the rest of the tour."  
**

**Luce didn't have much choice. She scrambled down the bleachers after Arriane,  
**

**ducking when one of the turkey vultures swooped dangerously low. Arriane, who  
**

**didn't seem to notice, pointed at a lichen-swathed church at the far right of the  
**

**commons.  
**

"**Over here, you'll find our state-of-the-art gymnasium," she said, assuming a nasal  
**

**tour guide tone of voice. "Yes, yes, to the untrained eye it looks like a church. It  
**

**used to be. We're kind of in an architectural hand-me-down Hell here at Sword &  
**

**C****Bottom of Form**

**ross. A few years ago, some calisthenic-crazed shrink showed up ranting about  
**

**overmedicated teens ruining society. He donated a shit- ton of money so they'd  
**

**convert it into a gym. Now the powers that be think we can work out our  
**

"**frustrations" in a "more natural and productive way.""  
**

**Luce groaned. She had always loathed gym class.  
**

"**Girl after my very own heart," Arriane commiserated, "Coach Diante is ee-vil."  
**

**As Luce jogged to keep up, she took in the rest of the grounds. The Dover quad  
**

**had been so well kept, all manicured and dotted with evenly spaced, carefully  
**

**pruned trees. Sword & Cross looked like it had been plopped down and abandoned  
**

**in the middle of a swamp. Weeping willows dangled to the ground, kudzu grew  
**

**along the walls in sheets, and every third step they took squished.  
**

**And it wasn't just the way the place looked. Every humid breath Luce took stuck  
**

**in her lungs. Just breathing at Sword & Cross made her feel like she was sinking  
**

**into quicksand.**

Everyone: "ditto!"**  
**

"**Apparently the architects got in a huge standoff over how to retrofit the style of  
**

**the old military academy buildings. The upshot is we ended up with half  
**

**penitentiary, half medieval torture zone. And no gardener," Arriane said, kicking  
**

**some slime off her combat boots. "Gross. Oh, and there's the cemetery."  
**

**Luce followed Arriane's pointing finger to the far left side of the quad, just past the  
**

**dormitory. An even thicker cloak of mist hung over the walled-off portion of land.  
**

**It was bordered on three sides by a thick forest of oaks. She couldn't see into the  
**

**cemetery, which seemed almost to sink below the surface of the ground, but she  
**

**could smell the rot and hear the chorus of cicadas buzzing in the trees. For a  
**

**second, she thought she saw the dark swish of the shadows, but she blinked and  
**

**they were gone.**

Arraine: "Poor girl."

Daniel: nods in agreement**  
**

"**That's a cemetery?"  
**

"**Yep. This used to be a military academy, way back in the Civil War days. So  
**

**That's where they buried all their dead. It's creepy as all get-out.  
**

**And lawd," Arriane said, piling on a fake southern ****accent****, "it stinks to high  
**

**Heaven." Then she winked at Luce. "We hang out there a lot."  
**

**Luce looked at Arriane to see if she was kidding. Arriane just shrugged.  
**

"**Okay, it was only once. And it was only after a really big pharmapalooza."  
**

**Now, that was a word Luce recognized.  
**

"**Aha!" Arriane laughed. "I just saw a light go on up there. So somebody is home.  
**

**Well, Luce, my dear, you may have gone to boarding school parties, but you've  
**

**never seen a throw-down like reform school kids do it."  
**

"**What's the difference?" Luce asked, trying to skirt the fact that she'd never  
**

**actually been to a big party at Dover.**

Arraine: " I knew it! HA she owes me 5 bucks!"

Daniel: "Arraine calm down. You can't prove she owes you 5 bucks without giving away that we read this.  
Arraine: "Don't worry, I will."**  
**

"**You'll see." Arriane paused and turned to Luce. "You'll come over tonight and  
**

**hang out, okay?" She surprised Luce by taking her hand. "Promise?"  
**

"**But I thought you said I should stay away from the hard cases," Luce joked.  
**

"**Rule number two, don't listen to me!" Arriane laughed, shaking her head. "I'm  
**

**certifiably insane!"**

Cam: "That almost makes sense!" **  
**

**She started jogging again and Luce trailed after her.  
**

"**Wait, what was rule number one?"  
**

"**Keep up!"  
**

**As they came around the corner of the cinder-block ****classrooms****, Arriane skidded to  
**

**a halt. "Affect cool," she said.  
**

"**Cool," Luce repeated.  
**

**All the other ****students**** seemed to be clustered around the kudzu-strangled trees  
**

**outside Augustine. No one looked exactly happy to be hanging out, but no one  
**

**looked ready to go inside yet, either.  
**

**There hadn't been much of a dress code at Dover, so Luce wasn't used to the  
**

**uniformity it gave a student body. Then again, even though every kid here was  
**

**wearing the same black jeans, black mock-turtleneck T-shirt, and black sweater  
**

**tied over the shoulders or around the waist, there were still substantial differences  
**

**in the way they pulled it off.  
**

**A group of tattooed girls standing in a crossed-armed circle wore bangle bracelets  
**

**up to their elbows. The black bandanas in their hair reminded Luce of a film she'd  
**

**once seen about motorcycle-gang girls. She'd rented it because she'd  
**

**thought: What could be cooler than an all-girls motorcycle gang? Now Luce's  
**

**eyes locked with those of one of the girls across the lawn. The sideways squint of  
**

**the girl's darkly lined cat-eyes made Luce quickly shift the direction of her gaze.  
**

**A guy and a girl who were holding hands had sewn sequins in the shape of skulls  
**

**and crossbones on the back of their black sweaters. Every few seconds, one of  
**

**them would pull the other in for a kiss on the temple, on the earlobe, on the eye. **

Daniel: sighs

Arraine: "aww don't worry. This time might be different

Daniel: "It won't be. It never is."

Cam: gag!**  
**

**T****Bottom of Form**

**hen they looped their arms around each other, Luce could see that each wore the  
**

**blinking wristband tracking device. They looked a little rough, but it was obvious  
**

**how much in love they were. Every time she saw their tongue rings flashing, Luce  
**

**felt a lonely pinch inside her chest.  
**

Arraine: 'Looks like Luce feels the same way."

Daniel: just sighs

**Behind the lovers, a cluster of blond boys stood pressed against the wall. Each of  
**

**them wore his sweater, despite the heat. And they all had on white oxford shirts  
**

**underneath, the collars starched straight up. Their black pants hit the vamps of their  
**

**polished dress shoes perfectly. Of all the students on the quad, these boys seemed  
**

**to Luce to be the closest thing to Doverites. But a closer look quickly set them  
**

**apart from boys she used to know. Boys like Trevor.  
**

**Just standing in a group, these guys radiated a specific kind of toughness. It was  
**

**right there in the look in their eyes. It was hard to explain, but it suddenly struck  
**

**Luce that just like her, everyone at this school had a past. Everyone here probably  
**

**had secrets they wouldn't want to share. But she couldn't figure out whether this  
**

**realization made her feel more or less isolated.  
**

**Arriane noticed Luce's eyes running over the rest of the kids.  
**

"**We all do what we can to make it through the day," she said, shrugging. "But in  
**

**case you hadn't observed the low-hanging vultures, this place pretty much reeks of  
**

**death." She took a seat on a bench under a weeping willow and patted the spot next  
**

**to her for Luce.  
**

**Luce wiped away a mound of wet, decaying leaves, but just before she sat down,  
**

**she noticed another dress code violation.  
**

**A very attractive dress code violation.  
**

Arraine: looks at Daniel

**He wore a bright red scarf around his neck. It was far from cold outside, but he had  
**

**on a black leather motorcycle jacket over his black sweater, too. Maybe it was  
**

**because his was the only spot of color on the quad, but he was all that Luce could  
**

**look at. In fact, everything else so paled in comparison that, for one long moment,  
**

**Luce forgot where she was.  
**

**She took in his deep golden hair and matching tan. His high cheekbones, the dark  
**

**sunglasses that covered his eyes, the soft shape of his lips. In all the movies Luce  
**

**had seen, and in all the books she'd read, the love interest was mind-blowingly  
**

**good-looking, except for that one little flaw. The chipped tooth, the charming  
**

**cowlick, the beauty mark on his left cheek. She knew why, if the hero  
**

**was too unblemished, he'd risk being unapproachable. But approachable or not,  
**

**Luce had always had a weakness for the sublimely gorgeous. Like this guy.  
**

**He leaned up against the building with his arms crossed lightly over his chest. And  
**

**for a split second, Luce saw a flashing image of herself folded into those arms.**

Daniel: groans

Cam: snickers

Arraine: glares at Cam

**She  
**

**shook her head, but the vision stayed so clear that she almost took off toward him.  
**

**No. That was crazy. Right? Even at a school full of crazies, Luce was well aware  
**

**that this instinct was insane. She didn't even know him.  
**

**He was talking to a shorter kid with dreads and a toothy smile. Both of them were  
**

**laughing hard and genuinely, in a way that made Luce strangely jealous. She tried  
**

**to think back and remember how long it had been since she'd laughed, really  
**

**laughed, like that.  
**

"**That's Daniel Grigori," Arriane said, leaning in and reading her mind. "I can tell  
**

**He's attracted somebody's attention."  
**

"**Understatement," Luce agreed, embarrassed when she realized how she must  
**

**have looked to Arriane.  
**

"**Yeah, well, if you like that sort of thing."**

Daniel: " Hey! What's not to like?"

Arraine: "cocky much?"

Daniel:" at the moment yes"**  
**

"**What's not to like?" Luce said, unable to stop the words from tumbling out.**

Daniel: "See?"

Arraine: "she doesn't count."

Daniel: laughs**  
**

"**His friend there is Roland," Arriane said, nodding in the dreadlocked kid's  
**

**direction. "He's cool. The kind of guy who can get his hands on things, ya  
**

**know?" Not really, Luce thought, biting her lip. "What kinds of things?"  
**

**Arriane shrugged, using her poached Swiss Army knife to saw off a fraying strand  
**

**from a rip in her black jeans. "Just things. Ask-and-you-shall-receive kind of  
**

**stuff." "What about Daniel?" Luce asked. "What's his story?"  
**

"**Oh, she doesn't give up." Arriane laughed, then cleared her throat. "No one really  
**

**knows," she said. "He holds pretty tight to his mystery man persona. Could just be  
**

**your typical reform school asshole."**

Daniel: "Thanks a lot."

Arraine: sarcastic "your welcome"**  
**

"**I'm no stranger to assholes," Luce said, though as soon as the words came out,  
**

**she wished she could take them back. After what had happened to Trevor?  
**

**whatever had happened, she was the last person who should be making character **

**udgments. But more than that, the rare time she made even the smallest reference  
**

**to that night, the shifting black canopy of the shadows came back to her, almost  
**

**like she was right back at the lake.  
**

**She glanced again at Daniel. He took his glasses off and slid them inside his jacket,  
**

**then turned to look at her.  
**

**His gaze caught hers, and Luce watched as his eyes widened and then quickly  
**

**narrowed in what looked like surprise. But no, it was more than that. When  
**

**Daniel's eyes held hers, her breath caught in her throat. She recognized him from  
**

**somewhere.  
**

**But she would have remembered meeting someone like him. She would have  
**

**remembered feeling as absolutely shaken up as she did right now.  
**

**She realized they were still locking eyes when Daniel flashed her a smile. A jet of  
**

**warmth shot through her and she had to grip the bench for support. She felt her lips  
**

**pull up in a smile back at him, but then he raised his hand in the air.  
**

**And flipped her off.**

Arraine: "Asshole."

Daniel: " thought I was doing the right thing"**  
**

**Luce gasped and dropped her eyes.  
**

"**What?" Arriane asked, oblivious to what had just gone down. "Never mind," she  
**

**said. "We don't have time. I sense the bell."  
**

**The bell rang as if on cue, and the whole student body started the slow shuffle into  
**

**the building. Arriane was tugging on Luce's hand and spouting off directions about  
**

**where to meet her next and when. But Luce was still reeling from being flipped the  
**

**bird by such a perfect stranger. Her momentary delirium over Daniel had vanished,  
**

**and now the only thing she wanted to know was: What was that guy's problem?  
**

**Just before she ducked into her first class, she dared to glance back. His face was  
**

**blank, but there was no mistaking it, he was watching her go.**

Arraine: "That's the end of this chapter. I have to say it is really hard to comment on a book when your so caught up in it. Anyways who is next?"

Cam: "Me! I read next!"

Arraine: hands book to Cam

Cam: Begins to read**  
**

**Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**khvs**

**Top of Form**

**Top of Form**

**Top of Form**


	3. Chapter 3

Reading Fallen Chapter 3

**(I do not own Fallen! All rights go to Lauren Kate!)**

Cam: Starts reading

**TWO  
FIT TO BE TIED**

Daniel: "What does that mean?"

Arraine: "I don't know lets read and find out."

**Luce had a piece of paper with her schedule printed on it, a half-empty notebook  
she'd started to fill at Dover in her Advanced European History class last year, two  
number two pencils, her favorite eraser, and the sudden bad feeling that Arriane  
might have been right about the classes at Sword & Cross.  
The teacher had yet to materialize, the flimsy desks were arranged in haphazard  
rows, and the supply closet was barricaded with stacks of dusty boxes piled in front  
of it.**

Arraine: "They really should clean up a little."

Cam: "Let me read!"

**What was worse, none of the other kids seemed to notice the disarray. In fact, none  
of the other kids seemed to notice that they were in a classroom at all. They all  
stood clustered near the windows, taking one last drag of a cigarette here,  
repositioning the extra-large safety pins on their T-shirts there. Only Todd was  
seated at an actual desk, carving something intricate onto its surface with his pen.  
But the other new students seemed to have already found their places among the  
crowd. Cam had the preppy Dover-looking guys in a tight cluster around him.  
They must have been friends when he was enrolled at Sword & Cross the first  
time. Gabbe was shaking hands with the tongue-pierced girl who'd been making  
out with the tongue-pierced guy outside. Luce felt stupidly envious that she wasn't  
daring enough to do anything but take a seat closer to the unthreatening Todd.  
Arriane flitted about the others, whispering things Luce couldn't make out like  
some sort of goth princess. When she passed Cam, he tousled her newly chopped  
hair.  
"Nice mop, Arriane,? He smirked, tugging on a strand at the back of her neck. "My  
compliments to your stylist."  
Arriane swatted him away. "Hands off, Cam. Which is to say: In your dreams."  
She jerked her head in Luce's direction. "And you can give your compliments to  
my new pet, right over there."  
Cam's emerald eyes sparkled at Luce, who stiffened. "I believe I will," he said,  
and started walking toward her.  
He smiled at Luce, who was sitting with her ankles crossed under her chair and her  
hands folded neatly on her heavily graffitied desk.  
"Us new kids have to stick together," he said. "Know what I mean?"**

Arraine: "cheesy line by the way."

Cam: "shut up"

**"But I thought you?d been here before."  
"Don't believe everything Arriane says." He glanced back at Arriane, who was  
standing at the window, eyeing them suspiciously.  
"Oh no, she didn't say anything about you," Luce said quickly, trying to remember  
whether or not that was actually true. It was clear Cam and Arriane didn't like each  
other, and even though Luce was grateful to Arriane for taking her around this  
morning, she wasn't ready to pick any sides yet.**

Daniel: "smart girl"

Arraine: "yeah just wait till she has to choose"

**"I remember when I was a new kid here ... the first time." He laughed to himself.  
"My band had just broken up and I was lost. I didn't know anyone. I could have  
**

**U****Bottom of Form**

**sed someone without,"he glanced at Arriane,"an agenda to show me the  
ropes."  
"What, and you have no agenda?" Luce said, surprised to hear a flirting lilt in her  
voice.**

Cam: smiles

Daniel&Arraine: frowns

**An easy smile spread across Cam's face. He raised one eyebrow at her. "And to  
think I didn't want to come back here."  
Luce blushed. She didn't usually get involved with rocker guys, but then again,  
none of them had ever pulled the desk next to her even closer, plopped down  
beside her, and stared at her with eyes quite so green. Cam reached into his pocket  
and pulled out a green guitar pick with the number 44 printed on it.  
"This is my room number. Come by anytime."  
The guitar pick wasn't far from the color of Cam's eyes, and Luce wondered how  
and when he'd had these printed up, but before she could answer, and who  
knew what she would have answered, Arriane clamped a hard hand down on  
Cam's shoulder. "I'm sorry, did I not make myself clear? I've already called dibs  
on this one."  
Cam snorted. He looked straight at Luce as he said, "See, I thought there was still  
such a thing as free will. Maybe your pet has a path of her own in mind."  
Luce opened her mouth to claim that of course she had a path, it was just her first  
day here and she was still figuring out the ropes. But by the time she was able to  
get the words straight in her head, the minute-warning bell rang, and the little  
gathering over Luce's desk dissolved.  
The other kids filed into desks around her, and soon it stopped being so noteworthy  
that Luce was sitting prim and proper at her desk, keeping her eye on the door.  
Keeping a lookout for Daniel.**

Daniel: gets the biggest grin ever

**Out of the corner of her eye, she could feel Cam sneaking peeks at her. She felt  
flattered, and nervous, then frustrated with herself. Daniel? Cam? She'd been at  
this school for what, forty-five minutes?, and her mind was already juggling two  
different guys. The whole reason she was at this school at all was because the last  
time she'd been interested in a guy, things had gone horribly, horribly wrong. She  
should not be allowing herself to get all smitten (twice!) on her very first day of  
school.**

Arraine: "Well said! You go girl!"

**She looked over at Cam, who winked at her again, then brushed his dark hair away  
from his eyes. Staggering good looks aside, yeah, right, he really did seem like a  
useful person to know. Like her, he was still adjusting to the setting, but had  
clearly been around the Sword & Cross block a few times before. And he was nice  
to her. She thought about the green guitar pick with his room number, hoping he  
didn't give those out freely.**

Arraine: "He dose."

**They could be ... friends. Maybe that was all she  
needed. **

Cam: Frowns

**Maybe then she would stop feeling quite so obviously out of place at  
Sword & Cross.  
Maybe then she'd be able to forgive the fact that the only window in the classroom  
was the size of a business envelope, caked with lime, and looked out on a massive  
mausoleum in the cemetery.  
Maybe then she'd be able to forget the nose-tickling odor of peroxide emanating  
from the bleached-blond punk chick sitting in front of her.  
Maybe then she could actually pay attention to the stern, mustached teacher who  
marched into the room, commanded the class to shape-up-and-sit-down, and firmly  
closed the door.  
The smallest tweak of disappointment tugged at her heart. It took her a moment to  
trace where it had come from. Until the teacher shut the door, she'd been holding  
out a little hope that Daniel would be in her first class, too.**

Cam: frowns

Daniel: smiles and sighs

**What did she have next hour, French? She looked down at her schedule to check  
what room it was in. Just then, a paper airplane skidded across her schedule,  
overshot her desk, and landed on the floor by her bag. She checked to see who'd  
noticed, but the teacher was busy tearing through a piece of chalk as he wrote  
something on the board.  
Luce glanced nervously to her left. When Cam looked over at her, he gave her a  
wink and a flirty little wave that caused her whole body to tense up. But he didn't  
seem to have seen or been responsible for the paper airplane.  
"Psssst," came the quiet whisper behind him. It was Arriane, who motioned with  
her chin for Luce to pick up the paper plane. Luce bent down to reach for it and  
saw her name written in small black letters on the wing. Her first note!  
**_**Already looking for the exit?  
Not a good sign.  
We're in this hellhole until lunch**_**.  
That had to be a joke. Luce double-checked her schedule and realized with horror  
that all three of her morning classes were in this very same room 1, and all three  
**

**Bottom of Form**

**C****Bottom of Form**

**ould be taught by the very same Mr. Cole.  
He'd detached himself from the blackboard and was sleepily threading his way  
through the room. There was no introduction for the new kids, and Luce couldn't  
decide whether she was glad about that or not. Mr. Cole merely slapped syllabi  
down on each of the four new students' desks. When the stapled packet landed in  
front of Luce, she leaned forward eagerly to take a look. History of the World, it  
read. Circumventing the Doom of Mankind. Hmmm, history had always been her  
strongest subject, but circumventing doom?  
A closer look at the syllabus was all it took for Luce to see that Arriane had been  
right about being in a hellhole: an impossible reading load, TEST in big, bold  
letters every third class period, and a thirty-page paper on, seriously?, the failed  
tyrant of your choice. Thick black parentheses had been drawn in black Sharpie  
around the assignments Luce had missed during the first few weeks. In the  
margins, Mr. Cole had written See me for Makeup Research Assignment. If there  
was a more effective way of soul-sucking, Luce would be scared to find out.  
At least she had Arriane sitting back there in the next row. Luce was glad the  
precedent had already been set for SOS note-passing. She and Callie used to text  
each other on the sly, but to make it here, Luce was definitely going to need to  
learn to fold a paper airplane. She tore a sheet from her notebook and tried to use  
Arriane's as a model.  
After a few origami-challenged minutes, another plane landed on her desk. She  
glanced back at Arriane, who shook her head and gave her a you-have-so-much-to-learn  
roll of the eyes.  
Luce shrugged an apology and swiveled back around to open the second note:  
**_**Oh, and until you're confident about your aim, you might not want to fly any  
Daniel-related messages my way. Dude behind you is famous on the football field  
for his interceptions.  
**_**Good to know. She hadn't even seen Daniel's friend Roland come in behind her.  
Now she turned very slightly in her seat until she glimpsed his dreadlocks out of  
the corner of her eye. She dared a glance down at the open notebook on his desk  
and caught his full name. Roland Sparks.  
"No note-passing," Mr. Cole said sternly, causing Luce to whip her head back to  
attention. "No plagiarizing, and no looking at one another's papers. I didn't put  
myself through graduate school only to receive your divided attention."  
Luce nodded in unison with the other dazed kids just as a third paper plane glided  
to a stop in the middle of her desk.  
**_**Only 172 minutes to go!**_

Daniel: "Very enthusiastic"

Arraine: "I thought so myself"

_****_**A hundred and seventy-three torturous minutes later, Arriane was leading Luce to  
the cafeteria. "What'd ya think?" she asked.  
"You were right," Luce said numbly, still recovering from how painfully bleak her  
first three hours of class had been. "Why would anyone teach such a depressing  
subject?"  
"Aw, Cole he'll ease up soon. He puts on his no-guff face every time there's a new  
student. Anyway," Arriane said, poking Luce, "it could be worse. You could have  
gotten stuck with Ms. Tross."  
Luce glanced down at her schedule. "I have her for biology in the afternoon  
block," she said with a sinking feeling in her gut.  
As Arriane sputtered out a laugh, Luce felt a bump on her shoulder. It was Cam,  
passing them in the hall on his way to lunch. Luce would have gone sprawling if  
not for his hand reaching back to steady her.  
"Easy there." He shot her a quick smile, and she wondered if he had bumped her  
intentionally.**

Daniel&Arraine: glare at Cam

Cam: smiles

**But he didn't seem that juvenile. Luce glanced at Arriane to see  
whether she'd noticed anything. Arriane raised her eyebrows, almost inviting Luce  
to speak, but neither one of them said a thing.  
When they crossed the dusty interior windows separating bleak hall from bleaker  
cafeteria, Arriane took hold of Luce's elbow.  
"Avoid the chicken-fried steak at all costs," she coached as they followed the  
crowd into the din of the lunchroom. "The pizza's fine, the chili's okay, and  
actually the borscht ain't bad. Do you like meat loaf?"  
"I'm a vegetarian," Luce said. She was glancing around the tables, looking for two  
people in particular. Daniel and Cam. She'd just feel more at ease if she knew  
where they were so she could go about having her lunch pretending that she didn't  
see either one of them. But so far, no sightings  
"Vegetarian, huh?" Arriane pursed her lips. "Hippie parents or your own meager**

**attempt at rebellion?" ****"****Bottom of Form**

**Uh, neither, I just don't."  
"Like meat?" Arriane steered Luce's shoulders ninety degrees so that she was  
looking directly at Daniel, sitting at a table across the room. Luce let out a long  
exhale. There he was.**

Daniel: smiles and lets out a sigh. She likes him a lot more that usual

"**Now, does that go for all meat?" Arriane sang loudly.  
"Like you wouldn't sink your teeth into him?"  
Luce slugged Arriane and dragged her toward the lunch line. Arriane was cracking  
up, but Luce knew she was blushing badly, which would be excruciatingly obvious  
in this fluorescent lighting.**

Arraine: rolling on the floor laughing. "I'm s-sorry! I-I-I C-c-can't help it!"

Daniel: just shakes his head

**"Shut up, he totally heard you," she whispered.  
Part of Luce felt glad to be joking about boys with a friend. Assuming Arriane was  
her friend.  
She still felt unglued by what had happened this morning when she'd seen Daniel.  
That pull toward him, she still didn't understand where it came from, and yet here  
it was again. She made herself tear her eyes away from his blond hair, from the  
smooth line of his jaw. She refused to be caught staring. She did not want to give  
him any reason to flip her off a second time.**

Daniel: Frowns

**"Whatever," Arriane scoffed. "He's so focused on that hamburger, he wouldn't  
hear the call of Satan." She gestured at Daniel, who did look intensely focused on  
chewing his burger. Scratch that, he looked like someone pretending to be  
intensely focused on chewing his hamburger.**

Arraine: "yeah it was that obvious."

Daniel: scowled

**Luce glanced across the table at Daniel's friend Roland. He was looking straight at  
her. When he caught her eye, he waggled his eyebrows in a way that Luce couldn't  
make sense of but that still creeped her out a little.  
Luce turned back to Arriane. "Why is everyone at this school so weird?"  
"I'm going to choose not to take offense at that," Arriane said, picking up a plastic  
tray and handing one to Luce. "And I'm going to move on to explaining the fine art  
of selecting a cafeteria seat. You see, you never want to sit anywhere near the?  
Luce, look out!"  
All Luce did was take one step backward, but as soon as she did, she felt the rough  
shove of two hands on her shoulders. Immediately, she knew she was going down.**

Daniel: "Molly." Scowls

Arrain: "ya think!" Pissed

Cam: "the bitch."

**She reached out in front of her for support, but all her hands found was someone  
else's full lunch tray. The whole thing tumbled down right along with her. She  
landed with a thud on the cafeteria floor, a full cup of borscht in her face.  
When she'd wiped enough mushy beets out of her eyes to see, Luce looked up. The  
angriest pixie she'd ever seen was standing over her. The girl had spiky bleached  
hair, at least ten piercings on her face, and a death glare. She bared her teeth at  
Luce and hissed, "If the sight of you hadn't just ruined my appetite, I'd make you  
buy me another lunch."**

Arraine: "I know where she can shove her lunch!"

Daniel: "Arraine calm down. It already happened remember. Today. Just calm down."

Arraine: "fine but I am gonna cut her"

**Luce stammered an apology. She tried to get up, but the girl clamped the heel of  
her black stiletto boot down on Luce's foot. Pain shot up her leg, and she had to  
bite her lip so she wouldn't cry out.  
"Why don't I just take a rain check," the girl said.  
"That's enough, Molly," Arriane said coolly. She reached down to help Luce to her  
feet.  
Luce winced. The stiletto was definitely going to leave a bruise.  
Molly squared her hips to face Arriane, and Luce got the feeling this was not the  
first time they'd locked horns.  
"Fast friends with the newbie, I see," Molly growled. "This is very bad behavior,  
A. Aren't you supposed to be on probation?"  
Luce swallowed. Arriane hadn't mentioned anything about probation, and it didn't  
make sense that that would prohibit her from making new friends. But the word  
was enough to make Arriane clench her fist and throw a fat punch that landed on  
Molly's right eye.  
Molly reeled backward, but it was Arriane who caught Luce's attention. She'd  
begun convulsing, her arms thrown up and jerking in the air.  
It was the wristband, Luce realized with horror. It was sending some sort of shock  
through Arriane's body. Unbelievable. This was cruel and unusual punishment, for  
sure. Luce's stomach churned as she watched her friend's entire body quake. She  
reached out to catch Arriane just as she sank to the floor.  
"Arriane," Luce whispered. "Are you okay?"  
"Terrific." Arriane's dark eyes flickered open, then shut.  
Luce gasped. Then one of Arriane's eyes popped back open. "Scared ya, did I?  
Aw, that's sweet. Don't worry, the shocks won't kill me," she whispered. "They  
only make me stronger. Anyway, it was worth it to give that cow a black eye, ya  
know?"  
"All right, break it up. Break it up," a husky voice boomed behind them.  
Randy stood in the doorway, red-faced and breathing hard. It was a little too late to ****b****Bottom of Form**

**reak anything up, Luce thought, but then Molly was lurching toward them, her  
stiletto heels clicking on the linoleum. This girl was shameless. Was she really  
going to kick the crap out of Arriane with Randy standing right there?  
Luckily, Randy's burly arms closed around her first. Molly tried to kick her way  
out and started screaming.  
"Somebody better start talking," Randy barked, squeezing Molly until she went  
limp. "On second thought, all three of you report for detention tomorrow morning.  
Cemetery. Crack of dawn!" Randy looked at Molly. "Have you chilled yet?"  
Molly nodded stiffly, and Randy released her. She crouched down to where  
Arriane still lay in Luce's lap, her arms crossed over her chest. At first Luce  
thought Arriane was sulking, like an angry dog with a shock collar, but then Luce  
felt a small jolt from Arriane?s body and realized that the girl was still at the mercy  
of the wristband.  
"Come on," Randy said, more softly. "Let's go turn you off."  
She extended her hand to Arriane and helped heave up her tiny, shaking body,  
turning back only once at the doorway to repeat her orders for Luce and Molly.  
"Crack of dawn!"  
"Looking forward to it," Molly said sweetly, reaching down to pick up the plate of  
meat loaf that had slipped from her tray.  
She dangled it over Luce?s head for a second, then turned the plate upside down  
and mashed the food into her hair. Luce could hear the squish of her own  
mortification as all of Sword & Cross got its viewing of the meat-loaf-coated new  
girl.  
"Priceless," Molly said, pulling out the tiniest silver camera from the back pocket  
of her black jeans. "Say ... meat loaf," she sang, snapping a few close-up shots.  
"These will be great on my blog."  
"Nice hat," someone jeered from the other side of the cafeteria. Then, with  
trepidation, Luce turned her eyes to Daniel, praying that somehow he had missed  
this whole scene. But no. He was shaking his head. He looked annoyed.  
Until that moment, Luce had thought she had a chance at standing up and just  
shaking off the incident, literally. But seeing Daniel?s reaction, well, it finally  
made her crack.**

Arraine:" poor girl"

Daniel&Cam: nod in agreement.

**She would not cry in front of any of these horrible people. She swallowed hard, got  
to her feet, and took off. She rushed toward the nearest door, eager to feel some  
cool air on her face.  
Instead, the southern September humidity cloaked her, choking her, as soon as she  
got outside. The sky was that no-color color, a grayish brown so oppressively  
bland it was difficult even to find the sun. Luce slowed down, but got as far as the  
edge of the parking lot before she came to a complete stop.  
She longed to see her battered old car there, to sink into the fraying cloth seat, rev  
the engine, crank up the stereo, and peel the hell out of this place. But as she stood  
on the hot black pavement, reality set in: She was stuck here, and a pair of  
towering metal gates separated her from the world outside Sword & Cross.  
Besides, even if she'd had a way out ... where was she going to go?  
The sick feeling in her gut told her all she needed to know. She was already at the  
last stop, and things were looking pretty grim.  
It was as depressing as it was true: Sword & Cross was all she had.  
She dropped her face into her hands, knowing she had to go back. But when she  
lifted her head, the residue on her palm reminded her that she was still coated in  
Molly's meat loaf. Ugh. First stop, the nearest bathroom.  
Back inside, Luce ducked into the girls? room just as the door was swinging open.  
Gabbe, who appeared even more blond and flawless now that Luce looked like  
she'd just gone Dumpster diving, squeezed past.  
"Whoops, 'scuse me, honey," she said. Her southern-accented voice was sweet, but  
her face crumpled up at the sight of Luce. "Oh God, you look terrible. What  
happened?" What happened? As if the whole school didn't already know. This girl  
was probably playing dumb so Luce would relive the whole mortifying scene.  
"Wait five minutes," Luce replied, with more of an edge in her voice than she  
meant. ?I?m sure gossip spreads like the plague around here.?  
"You want to borrow my foundation?" Gabbe asked, holding up a pastel blue  
cosmetics case. "You haven't seen yourself yet, but you're going to,"  
"Thanks, but no." Luce cut her off, pushing into the bathroom. Without looking at  
herself in the mirror, she turned on the faucet. She splashed cold water on her face  
and finally let it all out. Tears streaming, she pumped the soap dispenser and tried ****t****Bottom of Form**

**o use some of the cheap pink powdered hand soap to scrub off the meat loaf. But  
there was still the matter of her hair. And her clothes had definitely looked and  
smelled better. Not that she needed to worry about making a good first impression  
anymore.**

At this point everyone couldn't say anything without it being rated M.

**The bathroom door cracked open and Luce scrambled against the wall like a  
trapped animal. When a stranger walked in, Luce stiffened and waited for the  
worst.  
The girl had a squat build, accentuated by an abnormal amount of layered clothing.  
Her wide face was surrounded by curly brown hair, and her bright purple glasses  
wobbled when she sniffed. She looked fairly unassuming, but then, looks could be  
deceiving. Both her hands were tucked behind her back in a way that, after the day  
Luce had had, she just couldn't trust.  
"You know, you're not supposed to be in here without a pass," the girl said. Her  
even tone seemed to mean business.  
"I know." The look in the girl's eyes confirmed Luce's suspicion that it was  
absolutely impossible to catch a break at this place. She started to sigh in  
surrender. "I just,"  
"I'm kidding." The girl laughed, rolling her eyes and relaxing her posture. "I  
snagged some shampoo from the locker room for you," she said, bringing her  
hands around to display two innocent-looking plastic bottles of shampoo and  
conditioner. "Come on," she said, pulling over a beat-up folding chair. "Let's get  
you cleaned up. Sit here."**

Arraine: "ahh Penn. She is nice. She will be good for Luce."

Daniel: "ditto"

Cam: "Humph"

**A half-whimpering, half-laughing noise she'd never made before escaped from  
Luce's lips. It sounded, she guessed, like relief. The girl was actually being nice to  
her, not just reform school nice, but regular-person nice! For no apparent reason.  
The shock of it was almost too great for Luce to stand. "Thanks," Luce managed  
to say, still feeling a little bit guarded.  
"Oh, and you probably need a change of clothes," the girl said, looking down at  
her black sweater and pulling it over her head to expose an identical black sweater  
underneath.  
When she saw the surprised look on Luce's face, she said, "What? I have a hostile  
immune system. I have to wear a lot of layers."  
"Oh, well, will you be okay without this one?" Luce made herself ask, even though  
she would have done just about anything right then to get out of the meat cloak she  
was wearing.  
"Of course," the girl said, waving her off, "I've got three more on under this. And  
a couple more in my locker. Be my guest. It pains me to see a vegetarian covered  
in meat. I'm very empathetic."  
Luce wondered how this stranger knew about her dietary preferences, but more  
than that, she had to ask: "Um, why are you being so nice?"  
The girl laughed, sighed, then shook her head. "Not everyone at Sword & Cross is  
a whore or a jock."  
"Huh?" Luce said.  
"Sword & Cross ... Whores and Jocks. Lame nickname in town for this school.  
Obviously there aren't really any jocks here. I won't oppress your ears with some  
of the cruder nicknames they've come up with."  
Luce laughed.  
"All I meant was, not everyone here is a complete jerk."  
"Just the majority?" Luce asked, hating it that she already sounded so negative. But  
it had been such a long morning, and she'd already been through so much, and  
maybe this girl wouldn't judge her for being a little bit gruff.  
To her surprise, the girl smiled. "Exactly. And they sure give the rest of us a bad  
name," She stuck out her hand. "I'm Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood. You  
can call me Penn."  
"Got it," Luce said, still too frazzled to realize that, in a former life, she might have  
stifled a laugh at this girl's moniker. It sounded like she'd hopped straight off the  
pages of a Dickens novel. Then again, there was something trustworthy about a girl  
with a name like that who could manage to introduce herself with a straight face.  
"I'm Lucinda Price."  
"And everybody calls you Luce," Penn said. "And you transferred from Dover  
Prep in New Hampshire."  
"How'd you know that?" Luce asked slowly.  
"Lucky guess," Penn shrugged. "I'm kidding, I read your file, duh. It's a hobby."  
Luce stared at her blankly. Maybe she'd been too hasty with that trustworthy  
judgment. How could Penn have access to her file?  
Penn took over running the water. When it got warm, she motioned for Luce to  
lower her head into the sink.  
"See, the thing is," she explained, "I'm not actually crazy." She pulled Luce up by  
her wet head. "No offense." Then lowered her back down. "I'm the only kid at this ****S****Bottom of Form**

**chool without a court mandate. And you might not think it, but being legally sane  
has its advantages. For example, I'm also the only kid they trust to be an office  
aide. Which is dumb on their part. I have access to a lot of confidential shit."  
"But if you don't have to be here,"  
"When your father's the groundskeeper of the school, they kind of have to let you  
go for free. So," Penn trailed off.  
Penn's father was the groundskeeper? From the looks of the place, it hadn't  
crossed Luce's mind that they even had a groundskeeper.  
"I know what you're thinking," Penn said, helping Luce shampoo the last of the  
gravy from her hair. "That the grounds aren't exactly well kept,"  
"No," Luce lied. She was eager to stay on this girl's good side and wanted to put  
out the be-my-friend vibe way more than she wanted to seem like she actually  
cared about how often someone mowed the lawn at Sword & Cross. "It's, um,  
really nice."  
"Dad died two years ago," Penn said quietly. "They got as far as sticking me with  
decaying old Headmaster Udell as my legal guardian, but, uh, they never really got  
around to hiring a replacement for Dad."  
"I'm sorry," Luce said, lowering her voice, too. So someone else here knew what it  
was like to go through a major loss.  
"It's okay," Penn said, squirting conditioner into her palm. "It's actually a really  
good school. I like it here a lot."  
Now Luce's head shot up, sending a spray of water across the bathroom. "You sure  
you're not crazy?" she teased.  
"I'm kidding. I hate it here. It totally sucks."  
"But you can't bring yourself to leave," Luce said, tilting her head, curious.  
Penn bit her lip. "I know it's morbid, but even if I weren't stuck with Udell, I  
couldn't. My dad's here." She gestured toward the cemetery, invisible from here.  
"He's all I've got."  
"Then I guess you've got more than some other people at this school," Luce said,  
thinking of Arriane. Her mind rolled back to the way Arriane had gripped her hand  
on the quad today, the eager look in her blue eyes when she made Luce promise  
she'd swing by her dorm room tonight.  
"She's gonna be okay," Penn said. "It wouldn't be Monday if Arriane didn't get  
carted off to the nurse after a fit."  
"But it wasn't a fit," Luce said. "It was that wristband. I saw it. It was shocking  
her."  
"We have a very broad definition of what makes for a "fit" here at Sword & Cross.  
Your new enemy, Molly, She's thrown some legendary fits. They keep saying  
they're going to change her meds. Hopefully you'll have the pleasure of witnessing  
at least one good freak-out before they do."  
Penn's intel was pretty remarkable. It crossed Luce's mind to ask her what the  
story was with Daniel, but the complicated intensity of her interest in him was  
probably best kept to a need-to-know basis. At least until she figured it out herself.  
She felt Penn's hands wringing the water from her hair.  
"That's the last of it," Penn said. "I think you're finally meat-free."  
Luce looked in the mirror and ran her hands through her hair. Penn was right.  
Except for the emotional scarring and the pain in her right foot, there was no  
evidence of her cafeteria brawl with Molly.  
"I'm just glad you have short hair," Penn said. "If it were still as long as it was in  
the picture in your file, this would have been a much lengthier operation."  
Luce gawked at her. "I'm going to have to keep an eye on you, aren't I?"  
Penn looped her arm through Luce's and steered her out of the  
bathroom. "Just stay on my good side and no one gets hurt."  
Luce shot Penn a worried look, but Penn's face gave nothing away. "You're  
kidding, right?" Luce asked.  
Penn smiled, suddenly cheery. "Come on, we gotta get to class. Aren't you glad  
we're in the same afternoon block?"  
Luce laughed. "When are you going to stop knowing everything about me?"  
"Not in the foreseeable future," Penn said, tugging her down the hall and back  
toward the cinder-block classrooms. "You'll learn to love it soon, I promise. I'm a  
very powerful friend to have."**

**(A/N) Sorry guys this story sucks. I am just writing it for the heck of writing it. If you review I don't' care if its rude. I just can't think of what to make them say. Sorry.**  
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**Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Top of Form**


	4. Chapter 4

Reading Fallen Chapter 4

**(I do not own Fallen! Everything belongs to Lauren Kate!)**

Cam: That's the end of this chapter. Who reads next?

Daniel: I do

Cam: *hands book to Daniel*

Daniel: *cautious look, begins to read.*

**THREE  
DRAWING DARK  
**

Everyone: *gives curious looks*

Cam: Well keep reading!

Arraine: *Chuckles*

**Luce meandered down the dank dormitory hallway toward her room, dragging her  
red Camp Gurid duffel bag with the broken strap in her wake, The walls here were  
the color of a dusty blackboard, and the whole place was strangely quiet, save for  
the dull hum of the yellow fluorescent lamps hanging from the water-stained drop-panel  
ceilings.  
Mostly, Luce was surprised to see so many shut doors. Back at Dover, she'd**  
**always wished for more privacy, a break from the hall-wide dorm parties that  
sprang up at all hours. You couldn't walk to your room without tripping over a  
powwow of girls sitting cross-legged in matching jeans, or a lip-locked couple  
pressed against the wall.**

Arraine: sounds like fun. I wanna go there

Daniel: *sighs* Arraine, you want to go anywhere a party is at.

Arraine: very true.

Cam: Just freakin read already!

**But at Sword & Cross ... well, either everyone was already getting started on their  
thirty-page term papers ... or else the socializing here was of a much more behind-closed-  
doors variety.  
Speaking of which, the closed doors themselves were a sight to be seen. If the  
students at Sword & Cross got resourceful with their dress code violations, they  
were downright ingenious when it came to personalizing their spaces. Already  
Luce had walked by one door frame with a beaded curtain, and another with a  
motion-detecting welcome mat that encouraged her to "move the hell on" when  
she passed it.  
She came to a stop in front of the only blank door in the building. Room 63. Home  
bitter home. She fumbled for her key in the front pocket of her backpack, took a  
deep breath, and opened the door to her cell.  
Except it wasn't terrible. Or maybe it wasn't as terrible as she'd been expecting.  
There was a decent-sized window that slid open to let in some less stifling night  
air. And past the steel bars, the view of the moonlit commons was actually sort of  
interesting, if she didn't think too hard about the graveyard that lay beyond it. She  
had a closet and a little sink, a desk to do her work at, come to think of it, the  
saddest-looking thing in the room was the glimpse Luce caught of herself in the  
full-length mirror behind the door.**

Daniel: *frowns at this*

**She quickly looked away, knowing all too well what she'd find in the reflection.  
Her face looking pinched and tired. Her hazel eyes flecked with stress. Her hair  
like her family's hysterical toy poodle's fur after a rainstorm. Penn's sweater fit  
her like a burlap sack. She was shivering. Her afternoon classes had been no better  
than the morning's, due mainly to the fact that her biggest fear had come to  
fruition: The whole school had already started calling her Meat Loaf. And  
unfortunately, much like its namesake, the moniker seemed like it was going to  
stick.  
She wanted to unpack, to turn generic room 63 into her own place, where she could  
go when she needed to escape and feel okay. But she only got as far as unzipping  
her bag before she collapsed on the bare bed in defeat. She felt so far away from  
home. It only took twenty-two minutes by car to get from the loose-hinged  
whitewashed back door of her house to the rusty wrought iron entrance gates of  
Sword & Cross, but it might as well have been twenty-two years.  
For the first half of the silent drive with her parents this morning, the  
neighborhoods had all looked pretty much the same: sleepy southern middle-class  
suburbia. But then the road had gone over the causeway toward the shore, and the  
terrain had grown more and more marshy. A swell of mangrove trees marked the  
entrance into the wetlands, but soon even those dwindled out. The last ten miles of  
road to Sword & Cross were dismal. Grayish brown, featureless, forsaken. Back  
home in Thunderbolt, people around town always joked about the strangely  
memorable moldering stench out here: You knew you were in the marshes when  
your car started to reek of pluff mud.  
Even though Luce had grown up in Thunderbolt, she really wasn't that familiar  
with the far eastern part of the county. As a kid, she'd always just assumed that  
was because there wasn't any reason to come over here, all the stores, schools,  
and everyone her family knew were on the west side. The east side was just less  
developed. That was all.  
She missed her parents, who'd stuck a Post-it on the T-shirt at the top of her bag,  
**_**we love you! Prices never crash!**_** She missed her bedroom, which looked out on  
her dad's tomato vines. She missed Callie, who most certainly had sent her at least  
ten never-to-be-seen text messages already. She missed Trevor  
Or, well, that wasn't exactly it. What she missed was the way life had felt when  
she'd first started talking to Trevor. When she had someone to think about if she  
couldn't sleep at night, someone's name to doodle dorkily inside her notebooks.  
The truth was, Luce and Trevor never really had the chance to get to know each  
other all that well. The only memento she had was the picture Callie had snapped  
covertly, from across the football field between two of his squat sets, when he and  
Luce had talked for fifteen seconds about his squat sets. And the only date she'd e****ver gone on with him hadn't even been a real date, just a stolen hour when he'd  
pulled her away from the rest of the party. An hour she'd regret for the rest of her  
life.  
It had started out innocently enough, just two people going for a walk down by the  
lake, but it wasn't long before Luce started to feel the shadows lurking overhead.**

Daniel: *shivers*

Arraine: I can't believe she can see them

Daniel: *nods in agreement*

Cam: Damit keep reading!

**Then Trevor's lips touched hers, and the heat coursed through her body, and his  
eyes turned white with terror ... and seconds later, life as she'd known it had gone  
up in a blaze.**

Arraine: I can't belive it! They won't let her have anyone won't they?

Cam: Shut up and _fucking_ just read!

Arraine: Well I'm sorry Mr. Bossy Pants! I'm a little caught up in the moment!

Cam: *Growls*

Daniel:*Quickly continues reading*

**Luce rolled over and buried her face in the crook of an arm. She'd spent months  
mourning Trevor's death, and now, lying in this strange room, with the metal bars  
digging into her skin through the thin mattress, she felt the selfish futility of it all.  
She hadn't known Trevor any more than she knew ... well, Cam.  
A knock on her door made Luce shoot up from the bed. How would anyone know  
to find her here? She tiptoed to the door and pulled it open. Then she stuck her  
head into the very empty hallway. She hadn't even heard footsteps outside, and  
there was no sign of anyone having just knocked.  
Except the paper airplane pinned with a brass tack to the center of the corkboard  
next to her door. Luce smiled to see her name written in black marker along the  
wing, but when she unfolded the note, all that was written inside was a black arrow  
pointing straight down the hall.  
Arriane had invited her over tonight, but that was before the incident with Molly in  
the cafeteria. Looking down the empty hallway, Luce wondered about following  
the cryptic arrow. Then she glanced back at her giant duffel bag, her pity party  
waiting to be unpacked. She shrugged, pulled her door shut, put her room key in  
her pocket, and started walking.  
She stopped in front of a door on the other side of the hall to check out an  
oversized poster of Sonny Terry, a blind musician who she knew from her father's  
scratchy record collection was an incredible blues harmonica player. She leaned  
forward to read the name on the corkboard and realized with a start that she was  
standing in front of Roland Sparks's room. Immediately, annoyingly, there was  
that little part of her brain that started calculating the odds that Roland might be  
hanging out with Daniel, with only a thin door separating them from Luce.  
A mechanical buzzing sound made Luce jump. She looked straight into a  
surveillance camera drilled into the wall over Roland's door. The reds. Zooming in  
on her every move. She shrank away, embarrassed for reasons no camera would be  
able to discern. Anyway, she'd come here to see Arriane, whose room, she  
realized, just happened to be directly across the hall from Roland.  
In front of Arriane's room, Luce felt a little stab of tenderness. The entire door was  
covered with bumper stickers, some printed, others obviously homemade. There  
were so many that they overlapped, each slogan half covering and often  
contradicting the one before it. Luce laughed under her breath as she imagined  
Arriane collecting the bumper stickers indiscriminately (MEAN PEOPLE  
RULE ... MY DAUGHTER IS AN F STUDENT AT SWORD &  
CROSS ... VOTE NO ON PROP 666), then slapping them with a haphazard, but  
committed, focus onto her turf.  
Luce could have kept herself entertained for an hour reading Arriane's door, but  
soon she started to feel self-conscious about standing in front of a dorm room she  
was only half certain she'd actually been invited to. Then she saw the second paper  
airplane. She pulled it down from the corkboard and unfolded the message:  
**_**My Darling Luce,  
If you actually showed up to hang out tonight, props! We'll get along juuust fine.  
If you bailed on me, then get your claws off my private note, ROLAND! How many  
times do I have to tell you? Jeez.  
Anyhow: I know I said to swing by tonight, but I had to dash straight from R&R in  
the nurse's station (the silver fining of my Taser treatment today) to a makeup  
biology review with the Albatross, Which is to say "rain check"  
Yours psychotically,  
A  
**_**Luce stood with the note in her hands, unsure about what to do next. She was  
relieved to read that Arriane was being taken care of, but she still wished she could  
see the girl in person.**

Arraine: See she likes me!

Daniel: Of course she dose.

Cam: *shakes* read.

**She wanted to hear the nonchalance in Arriane's voice for  
herself, so that she'd know how to feel about what had happened in the cafeteria  
today. But standing there in the hallway, Luce was ever more uncertain how to process the day's events. A quiet panic filled her when it finally registered that she  
was alone, after dark, at Sword & Cross.  
Behind her, a door cracked open. A sliver of white light opened up on ****the floor****  
beneath her feet. Luce heard music being played inside a room.  
"Whatcha doin?" It was Roland, standing in his doorway in a torn white T-shirt  
and jeans. His dreads were gathered in a yellow ****rubber band**** on top of his head and  
he held a harmonica up next to his lips.  
"I came to see Arriane," Luce said, trying to keep herself from looking past him to  
see if anyone else was in the room. "We were supposed to,"  
"Nobody's home," he said, cryptically. Luce didn't know if he meant Arriane, or  
the rest of the kids in the dorm, or what. He played a few bars on the harmonica,  
keeping his eyes on her the whole time. Then he held open the door a little bit  
wider and raised his eyebrows. She couldn't tell whether or not he was inviting her  
to come in.  
"Well, I was just swinging by on my way to the library," she lied quickly, turning  
back the way she'd come. "There's a book I need to check out."**

Arraine: smooth one.

**"Luce," Roland called.  
She turned around. They hadn't officially met yet, and she hadn't expected him to  
know her name. His eyes flashed a smile at her and he used the harmonica to point  
in the opposite direction. "Library's that way," he said. He crossed his arms over  
his chest. "Be sure to check out the special collections in the east wing. They're  
really something."**

Daniel: *frowns* That's where she came from.

**"Thanks," Luce said, feeling truly grateful as she changed course. Roland seemed  
so real right then, waving and playing a few parting slides on the harmonica as she  
left. Maybe he'd only made her nervous earlier because she thought of him as  
Daniel's friend. For all she knew, Roland could be a really nice person. Her mood  
lifted as she walked down the hallway. First Arriane's note had been snappy and  
sarcastic, then she'd had a non-awkward encounter with Roland Sparks; plus she  
really did want to check out the library. Things were looking up.  
Near the end of the hall, where the dorm elbowed off toward the library wing, Luce  
passed the only cracked-open door on the floor. There was no decorative flair on  
this door, but someone had painted it all black. As she got closer, Luce could hear  
angry heavy metal music playing inside. She didn't even have to pause to read the  
name on the door. It was Molly's.  
Luce quickened her steps, suddenly aware of every clop of her black riding boots  
on the linoleum. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she pushed  
through the wood-grained library doors and exhaled.  
A warm feeling came over Luce as she looked around the library. She'd always  
loved the faintly sweet musty way that only a roomful of books smelled.**

Daniel: *smiles*

**She took  
comfort in the soft occasional sound of turning pages. The library at Dover had  
always been her escape, and Luce felt almost overwhelmed with relief as she  
realized that this one might offer her the same sense of sanctuary. She could hardly  
believe that this place belonged to Sword & Cross. It was almost ... it was  
actually ... inviting.  
The walls were a deep mahogany and the ceilings were high. A fireplace with a  
brick hearth lay along one wall. There were long wooden tables lit by old-fashioned  
green lamps, and aisles of books that went on farther than she could see.  
The sound of her boots was hushed by a thick Persian carpet as Luce wandered  
past the entryway.  
A few students were studying, none that Luce knew by name, but even the more  
punky-looking kids seemed less threatening with their heads bent over books. She  
neared the main circulation desk, which was a great round station at the center of  
the room. It was strewn with stacks of papers and books and had a homey  
academic messiness that reminded Luce of her parents' house. The books were  
piled so high that Luce almost didn't see the librarian seated behind them. She was  
rooting through some paperwork with the energy of someone panning for gold. Her  
head popped up as Luce approached.  
"Hello!" The woman smiled, she actually smiled, at Luce. Her hair was not gray  
but silver, with a kind of brilliance that sparkled even in the soft library light. Her  
face looked old and young at the same time. She had pale, almost incandescent  
skin, bright black eyes, and a tiny, pointed nose. When she spoke to Luce, she  
pushed up the sleeves of her white ****cashmere sweater****, exposing stacks and stacks of  
pearl bracelets decorating both of her wrists. "Can I help you find something?" she  
asked in a happy whisper.  
Luce felt instantly at ease with this woman, and glanced down at the nameplate on  
her desk. Sophia Bliss. She wished she did have a library request. This woman was  
the first authority figure she'd seen all day whose help she would actually have  
wanted to seek out. But she was just here wandering around ... and then she  
remembered what Roland Sparks had said.  
"I'm new here," she explained. "Lucinda Price. Could you tell me where the east  
wing is?"  
The woman gave Luce a you-look-like-the-reading-sort smile that Luce had been  
getting from librarians all her life. "Right that way," she said, pointing toward a  
row of tall windows on the other side of the room. "I'm Miss Sophia, and if my  
roster's correct, you're in my religion seminar on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Oh,  
we're going to have some fun!" She winked. "In the meantime, if you need  
anything else, I'm here. A pleasure to meet you, Luce."  
Luce smiled her thanks, told Miss Sophia happily that she'd see her tomorrow in  
class, and started toward ****the windows****. It was only after she'd left the librarian that  
she wondered about the strange, intimate way the woman had called her by her  
nickname.  
She'd just cleared the main study area and was passing through the tall, elegant  
book stacks when something dark and macabre passed over her head. She glanced  
up.**

Arraine: Oh no! Luce be carefull!

Cam: Your talking like this is a freakin soap opera.

Arraine: It kinda is only in real life. Duh!

Daniel: *shakes his head*

**No. Not here. Please. Let me just have this one place.  
When the shadows came and went, Luce was never sure exactly where they ended  
up, or how long they would be gone.  
She couldn't figure out what was happening now. Something was different. She  
was terrified, yes, but she didn't feel cold. In fact, she felt a little bit flushed. The  
library was warm, but it wasn't that warm. And then her eyes fell on Daniel.  
He was facing the window, his back to her, leaning over a podium that said  
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS in white letters. The sleeves of his worn leather jacket  
were pushed up around his elbows, and his blond hair glowed under the lights. His  
shoulders were hunched over, and yet again, Luce had an instinct to fold herself  
into them. She shook it from her head and stood on tiptoe to get a better look at  
him. From here, she couldn't be certain, but he looked like he was drawing  
something.**

Daniel: I was.

Cam: shut up and read.

**As she watched the slight movement of his body as he sketched, Luce's insides felt  
like they were burning, like she'd swallowed something hot. She couldn't figure  
out why, against all reason, she had this wild premonition that Daniel was drawing  
her.**

Daniel: I wasn't. It was probably her having a premonition.

Cam: OK lover boy now keep reading

**She shouldn't go to him. After all, she didn't even know him, had never actually  
spoken to him. Their only communication so far had included one middle finger  
and a couple of dirty looks. Yet for some reason, it felt very important to her that  
she find out what was on that sketchpad.  
Then it hit her. The dream she'd had the night before. The briefest flash of it came  
back to her all of a sudden.**

Daniel&Arraine: *Holds their breath*

**In the dream, it had been late at night, damp and  
chilly, and she'd been dressed in something long and flowing. She leaned up  
against a curtained window in an unfamiliar room. The only other person there was  
a man ... or a boy, she never got to see his face. He was sketching her likeness on  
a thick pad of paper. Her hair. Her neck. The precise outline of her profile. She  
stood behind him, too afraid to let him know she was watching, too intrigued to  
turn away.  
Luce jerked forward as she felt something pinch the back of her shoulder, then  
float over her head. The shadow had resurfaced. It was black and as thick as a  
curtain.  
The pounding of her heart grew so loud that it filled her ears, blocking out the dark  
rustle of the shadow, blocking out the sound of her footsteps. Daniel glanced up  
from his work and seemed to raise his eyes to exactly where the shadow hovered,  
but he didn't start the way she had.  
Of course, he couldn't see them. His focus settled calmly outside the window.  
The heat inside her grew stronger. She was close enough now that she felt like he  
must be able to feel it coming off her skin.  
As quietly as she could, Luce tried to peer over his shoulder at his sketchpad. For  
just a second, her mind saw the curve of her own bare neck sketched in pencil on  
the page. But then she blinked, and when her eyes settled back on the paper, she  
had to swallow hard.  
It was a landscape. Daniel was drawing the view of the cemetery out the window**

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**i****n almost perfect detail. Luce had never seen anything that made her quite so sad.  
She didn't know why. It was crazy, even for her, to have expected her bizarre  
intuition to come true. There was no reason for Daniel to draw her. She knew that.  
Just like she knew he'd had no reason to flip her off this morning. But he had.  
"What are you doing over here?" he asked. He'd closed his sketchbook and was  
looking at her solemnly. His full lips were set in a straight line and his gray eyes  
looked dull. He didn't look angry, for a change; he looked exhausted.  
"I came to check out a book from Special Collections," she said in a wobbly voice.  
But as she looked around, she quickly realized her mistake, Special Collections  
wasn't a section of books, it was an open area in the library for an art display  
about the Civil War. She and Daniel were standing in a tiny gallery of bronze busts  
of war heroes, glass cases filled with old promissory notes and Confederate maps.  
It was the only section of the library where there wasn't a single book to check  
out.  
"Good luck with that," Daniel said, opening up his sketchbook again, as if to say,  
preemptively, goodbye.**

Arraine: smartass. Why do you have to be so rude to her.

Daniel: You know why.

Arraine: You it won't work. She is still gonna fall in love with you.

Daniel: I know. But I have to try.

Cam: OK end the little pity party and read!

Daniel&Arraine: *glare at Cam*

**Luce was tongue-tied and embarrassed and what she would have liked to do was  
escape. But then, there were the shadows, still lurking nearby, and for some reason  
Luce felt better about them when she was next to Daniel. It made no sense, like  
there was anything he could do to protect her from them.  
She was stuck, rooted to her spot. He glanced up at her and sighed.  
"Let me ask you, do you like being sneaked up on?"  
Luce thought about the shadows and what they were doing to her right now.  
Without thinking, she shook her head roughly.  
"Okay, that makes two of us." He cleared his throat and stared at her, driving home  
the point that she was the intruder.  
Maybe she could explain that she was feeling a little light-headed and just needed  
to sit down for a minute. She started to say, "Look, can I,"  
But Daniel picked up his sketchbook and got to his feet. "I came here to get away,"  
he said, cutting her off. "If you're not going to leave, I will."  
He shoved his sketchbook into his backpack. When he pushed past, his shoulder  
brushed hers. Even as brief as the touch was, even through their layers of clothes,  
Luce felt a shock of static.  
For a second, Daniel stood still, too. They turned their heads to look back at each  
other, and Luce opened her mouth. But before she could speak, Daniel had turned  
on his heel and was walking quickly toward the door. Luce watched as the  
shadows crept over his head, swirled in a circle, then rushed out the window into  
the night.  
**

Daniel: That's the end of this chapter. Arraine you read next.

Arraine: gimme the book then.

Daniel: *hesitantly gives her the book. He doesn't want to let go.*

Cam: well it's official. She can see the shadows.

Arraine: No shit Sherlock!

Cam: shut up and just read, =(

**(A/N) Hope you guys liked it! I'm not that good at commenting in between the story but I tried my best! Cam is a little rude isn't he? Anyways review please! Flames are accepted!**

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	5. Chapter 5

Reading Fallen Chapter 5

**(I do not own Fallen! Everything belongs to L.!)**

Arraine: *glares at Cam and begins to read*

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**FOUR  
GRAVEYARD SHIFT  
****Ahhh, Tuesday. Waffle day. For as long as Luce could remember, summer  
Tuesdays meant fresh coffee, brimming bowls of raspberries and whipped cream,  
and an unending stack of crispy golden brown waffles.**

Arraine: Yummm!

Daniel: *nods in agreement*

**Even this summer, when  
her parents started acting a little scared of her, waffle day was one thing she could  
count on. She could roll over in bed on a Tuesday morning, and before she was  
aware of anything else, she knew instinctively what day it was.  
Luce sniffed, slowly coming to her senses, then sniffed again with a little more  
gusto. No, there was no buttermilk batter, nothing but the vinegary smell of peeling  
paint. She rubbed the sleep away and took in her cramped dorm room. It looked  
like the "before" shot on a home renovation show. The long nightmare that had  
been Monday came back to her:  
the surrender of her cell phone, the meat loaf incident and Molly's flashing eyes in  
the lunchroom, Daniel brushing her off in the library.**

Arraine: *glares at Daniel*

**What it was that made him  
so spiteful, Luce didn't have a clue.  
She sat up to look out the window. It was still dark; the sun hadn't even peeked  
over the horizon yet. She never woke up this early. If pressed, she didn't actually  
think she could remember ever having seen the sunrise. Truthfully, something  
about sunrise-watching as an activity had always made her nervous. It was the  
waiting moments, the just- before-the-sun-snapped-over-the-horizon moments,  
sitting in the darkness looking out across a tree line. Prime shadow time.  
Luce sighed an audibly homesick, lonely sigh, which made her even more  
homesick and lonely. What was she going to do with herself for the three hours  
between the crack of dawn and her first class? Crack of dawn, why did the words  
ring in her ears? Oh. Crap. She was supposed to be at detention.  
**

**She scrambled out of bed, tripping over her still-packed duffel bag, and yanked  
another boring black sweater from the top of a stack of boring black sweaters. She  
tugged on yesterday's black jeans, winced as she caught a glimpse of her  
disastrous bed head, and tried to run her fingers through her hair as she dashed out  
the door.  
She was out of breath when she reached the waist-high, intricately sculpted  
wrought iron gates of the cemetery. She was choking on the overwhelming smell  
of skunk cabbage and feeling far too alone with her thoughts. Where was everyone  
else? Was their definition of "crack of dawn" different from hers? She glanced  
down at her watch. It was already six-fifteen.  
All they'd told her was to meet at the cemetery, and Luce was pretty sure this was  
the only entrance. She stood at the threshold, where the gritty asphalt of the  
parking lot gave way to a mangled lot full of weeds. She spotted a lone dandelion,  
and it crossed her mind that a younger Luce would have pounced on it and then  
made a wish and blown. But this Luce's wishes felt too heavy for something so  
light.  
The delicate gates were all that divided the cemetery from the parking lot. Pretty  
remarkable for a school with so much barbed wire everywhere else.**

Arraine: Agreed!

**Luce ran her  
hand along the gates, tracing the ornate floral pattern with her fingers. The gates  
must have dated back to the Civil War days Arriane was talking about, back when  
the cemetery was used to bury fallen soldiers. When the school attached to it was  
not a home for wayward psychos. When the whole place was a lot less overgrown  
and shadowy.  
It was strange, the rest of the campus was as flat as a sheet of paper, but  
somehow, the cemetery had a concave, bowl-like shape. From here, she could see  
the slope of the whole vast thing before her. Row after row of simple headstones  
lined the slopes like spectators at an arena.  
But toward the middle, at the lowest point of the cemetery, the path through the  
grounds twisted into a maze of larger carved tombs, marble statues, and  
mausoleums. Probably for Confederate officers, or just the soldiers who came from  
money. They looked like they'd be beautiful up close. But from here, the sheer  
weight of them seemed to drag the cemetery down, almost like the whole place  
was being swallowed into a drain.  
Footsteps behind her. Luce whirled around to see a stumpy, black-clad figure  
emerge from behind a tree. Penn! She had to resist the urge to throw her arms  
around the girl. Luce had never been so glad to see anyone, though it was hard to  
believe Penn ever got detentions.  
"Aren't you late?" Penn asked, stopping a few feet in front of Luce and giving her  
an amused you-poor-newbie shake of the head.  
"I've been here for ten minutes," Luce said. "Aren't you the one who's late?"  
Penn smirked. "No way, I'm just an early riser. I never get detention." She  
shrugged and pushed her purple glasses up on her nose. "But you do, along with  
five other unfortunate souls, who are probably getting angrier by the minute  
waiting for you down at the monolith." She stood on tiptoe and pointed behind  
Luce, toward the largest stone structure, which rose up from the middle of the  
deepest part of the cemetery. If Luce squinted, she could just make out a group of  
black figures clustered around its base.  
"They just said meet at the cemetery," Luce said, already feeling defeated. "No one  
told me where to go."  
"Well, I'm telling you: monolith. Now get down there," Penn said. "You're not  
going to make many friends by cutting into their morning any more than you  
already have."  
Luce gulped. Part of her wanted to ask Penn to show her the way. From up here, it  
looked like a labyrinth, and Luce did not want to get lost in the cemetery.  
Suddenly, she got that nervous, far-away-from-home feeling, and she knew it was  
only going to get worse in there. She cracked her knuckles, stalling.  
"Luce," Penn said, giving her shoulders a bit of a shove. "You're still standing  
here."  
Luce tried to give Penn a brave thank-you smile, but had to settle for an awkward  
facial twitch. Then she hurried down the slope into the heart of the cemetery.  
The sun still hadn't risen, but it was getting closer, and these last few predawn  
moments were always the ones that creeped her out the most. She tore past the  
rows of plain headstones. At one point they must have been upright, but by now  
they were so old that most of them tipped over to one side or the other, giving the whole place the look of a set of morbid dominoes.**

Cam: That's one way of putting it.

Arraine: *Mocking Cam's voice* _"shut up and just let me read!"_

Cam: *glares at Arraine*

Daniel: *Smirks*

**She slopped in her black Converse sneakers through puddles of mud, crunched  
over dead leaves. By the time she cleared the section of simple plots and made it to  
the more ornate tombs, the ground had more or less flattened out, and she was  
totally lost. She stopped running, tried to catch her breath. Voices. If she calmed  
down, she could hear voices.  
"Five more minutes, then I'm out," a guy said.  
"Too bad your opinion has no value, Mr. Sparks." An ornery voice, one Luce  
recognized from her classes yesterday. Ms. Tross, the Albatross. After the meat  
loaf incident,  
Luce had shown up late to her class and hadn't exactly made the most favorable  
impression on the dour, spherical science teacher.  
"Unless anyone wants to lose his or her social privileges this week," groans from  
among the tombs, "we will all wait patiently, as if we had nothing better to do,  
until Miss Price decides to grace us with her presence."  
"I'm here," Luce gasped, finally rounding a giant statue of a cherub.  
Ms. Tross stood with her hands on her hips, wearing a variation of yesterday's  
loose black muumuu. Her thin mouse-brown hair was plastered to her scalp and  
her dull brown eyes showed only annoyance at Luce's arrival. Biology had always  
been tough for Luce, and so far, she wasn't doing her grade in Ms. Tross's class  
any favors.  
Behind the Albatross were Arriane, Molly, and Roland, scattered around a circle of  
plinths that all faced a large central statue of an angel. Compared to the rest of the  
statues, this one seemed newer, whiter, grander. And leaning up against the angel's  
sculpted thigh, she almost hadn't noticed, was Daniel.**

Cam&Arraine: OH THE IRONY! *glares at each other*

**He was wearing the busted black leather jacket and the bright red scarf she'd  
fixated on yesterday. Luce took in his messy blond hair, which looked like it  
hadn't yet been smoothed down after sleep ... which made her think about what  
Daniel might look like when he was sleeping ... which made her blush so intensely  
that by the time her eyes made their way down from his hairline to his eyes, she  
was thoroughly humiliated.  
By then he was glaring at her.  
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, "I didn't know where we were supposed to meet. I  
swear,"  
"Save it," Ms. Tross said, dragging a finger across her throat. "You've wasted  
enough of everyone's time. Now, I'm sure you all remember whatever despicable  
indiscretion you committed to find yourself here. You can think about that for the  
next two hours while you work. Pair up. You know the drill." She glanced at Luce  
and let out her breath. "Okay, who wants a protégé?"  
To Luce's horror, all of the other students looked at their feet. But then, after a  
torturous minute, a fifth student stepped into view around the corner of the  
mausoleum.  
"I do."  
Cam.**

Daniel: *frowns*

Cam: *snickers* you didn't say anything dude.

**His black V-neck T-shirt fit close around his broad shoulders. He stood  
almost a foot taller than Roland, who moved aside as Cam pushed past and walked  
toward Luce. His eyes were glued to her as he strode forward, moving smoothly  
and confidently, as at ease in his reform school garb as Luce was ill at ease. Part of  
her wanted to avert her eyes, because it was embarrassing the way Cam was staring  
at her in front of everyone. But for some reason, she was mesmerized. She couldn't  
break his gaze, until Arriane stepped between them.  
"Dibs," she said. "I called dibs."  
"No you didn't," Cam said.  
"Yes I did, you just didn't hear me from your weird perch back there." The words  
rushed out of Arriane. "I want her,"  
"I," Cam started to respond.  
Arriane cocked her head expectantly. Luce swallowed. Was he going to come out  
and say he wanted her, too? Couldn't they just forget about it? Serve detention in a  
group of three?  
Cam patted Luce's arm. "I'll catch up with you after, okay?" he said to her, like it  
was a promise she'd asked him to keep.  
The other kids hopped off tombs they'd been sitting on and trooped toward a shed.  
Luce followed, clinging to Arriane, who wordlessly handed her a rake.  
"So. Do you want the avenging angel, or the fleshy embracing lovers?"  
There was no mention of yesterday's events, or of Arriane's note, and Luce  
somehow didn't feel she should bring anything up with Arriane now. Instead, she  
glanced overhead to find herself flanked by two giant statues. The one closer to her  
looked like a Rodin. A nude man and woman stood tangled in an embrace. She'd  
studied French sculpture back at Dover, and always thought Rodins were the most romantic pieces. But now it was hard to look at the embracing lovers without  
thinking of Daniel.**

Arraine: awwwww!

Daniel: I love her so much.

Cam: READ!

**Daniel. Who hated her. If she needed any further proof of that  
after he'd basically bolted from the library last night, all she had to do was think  
back to the fresh glare she'd gotten from him this morning.  
"Where's the avenging angel?" she asked Arriane with a sigh.  
"Good choice. Over here." Arriane led Luce to a massive marble sculpture of an  
angel saving the ground from the strike of a thunderbolt. It might have been an  
interesting piece, back in the day when it was first carved. But now it just looked  
old and dirty, covered in mud and green moss.  
"I don't get it," Luce said. "What do we do?"**

Everyone: *chuckles* Luce!

**"Scrub-a-dub-dub," Arriane said, almost singing. "I like to pretend I'm giving  
them a little bath." With that, she scrambled up the giant angel, swinging her legs  
over the statue's thunderbolt-thwarting arm, as if the whole thing were a sturdy old  
oak tree for her to climb.  
Terrified of looking like she was asking for more trouble from Ms. Tross, Luce  
starting working her rake across the base of the statue. She tried to clear away what  
seemed like an endless pile of damp leaves.  
Three minutes later, her arms were killing her. She definitely hadn't dressed for  
this kind of muddy manual labor. Luce had never been sent to detention at Dover,  
but from what she'd overheard, it consisted of filling a piece of paper with "I will  
not plagiarize off the Internet" a few hundred times.  
This was brutal. Especially when all she'd really done was accidentally bump into  
Molly in the lunchroom. She was trying not to make snap judgments here, but  
clearing mud from the graves of people who'd been dead over a century? Luce  
totally hated her life right now.  
Then a tease of sunlight finally filtered through the trees, and suddenly there was  
color in the graveyard. Luce felt instantly lighter. She could see more than ten feet  
in front of her. She could see Daniel ... working side by side with Molly.  
Luce's heart sank. The airy feeling disappeared.**

Arraine: *raises her eyebrows*

Daniel: *just shakes his head*

**She looked at Arriane, who shot her a this-blows sympathy glance but kept  
working.  
"Hey," Luce whispered loudly.  
Arriane put a finger to her lips but motioned for Luce to climb up next to her.  
With much less grace and agility, Luce grabbed the statue's arm and swung herself  
up onto the plinth. Once she was fairly certain that she wasn't going to tumble to  
the ground, she whispered, "So ... Daniel's friends with Molly?"  
Arriane snorted. "No way, they totally hate each other," she said quickly, then  
paused. "Why d'you ask?"  
Luce pointed at the two of them, doing no work whatsoever to clear brush from  
their tomb. They were standing close to each other, leaning on their rakes and  
having a conversation that Luce desperately wished she could hear. "They look  
like friends to me."  
"It's detention," Arriane said flatly. "You have to pair up. Do you think Roland  
and Chester the Molester are friends?" She pointed at Roland and Cam. They  
seemed to be arguing about the best way to divvy up their work on the lovers'  
statue. "Detention buddies does not equal real-life buddies."  
Arriane looked back at Luce, who could feel her face falling, despite her best  
efforts to appear unfazed.  
"Look, Luce, I didn't mean ..." She trailed off. "Okay, aside from the fact that you  
made me waste a good twenty minutes of my morning, I have no problem with  
you. In fact, I think you're sort of interesting. Kinda fresh. That said, I don't know  
what you were expecting in terms of mushy-gushy friendship here at Sword &  
Cross. But let me be the first to tell you, it just ain't that easy. People are here  
because they've got baggage. I'm talking curbside-check-in, pay-the-fine-?cause-it's-over-fifty-pounds kind of baggage. Get it?"  
Luce shrugged, feeling embarrassed. "It was just a question."  
Arriane snickered. "Are you always so defensive? What the hell did you do to get  
in here, anyway?"  
Luce didn't feel like talking about it. Maybe Arriane was right, she'd be better off  
not trying to make friends. She hopped down and went back to attacking the moss  
at the base of the statue.  
Unfortunately, Arriane was intrigued. She hopped down, too, and brought her rake  
down on top of Luce's to pin it in place.  
"Ooh, tell me tell me tell me," she taunted.  
Arriane's face was so close to Luce's. It reminded Luce of yesterday, crouching  
over Arriane after she'd convulsed. They'd had a moment, hadn't they? And part of Luce badly wanted to be able to talk to someone. It had been such a long,  
stifling summer with her parents. She sighed, resting her forehead on the handle of  
her rake.  
A salty, nervous taste filled her mouth, but she couldn't swallow it away. The last  
time she'd gone into these details, it had been because of a court order. She would  
just as soon have forgotten them, but the longer Arriane stared her down, the  
clearer the words grew, and the closer they came to the tip of her tongue.  
"I was with a friend one night," she started to explain, taking a long, deep breath.  
"And something terrible happened." She closed her eyes, praying that the scene  
wouldn't play out in a burst under the red-black of her eyelids. "There was a fire. I  
made it out ... and he didn?t."  
Arriane yawned, much less horrified by the story than Luce was.**

Daniel: *shoots Arraine a look*

Arraine: what?

**"Anyway," Luce went on, "afterwards, I couldn't remember the details, how it  
happened. What I could remember, what I told the judge, anyway, I guess they  
thought I was crazy." She tried to smile, but it felt forced.  
To Luce's surprise, Arriane squeezed her shoulder. And for a second, her face  
looked really sincere. Then it changed back into its smirk.  
"We're all so misunderstood, aren't we?" She poked Luce in the gut with her  
finger. "You know, Roland and I were just talking about how we don't have any  
pyromaniac friends. And everyone knows you need a good pyro to pull off any  
reform school prank worth the effort." She was scheming already. "Roland thought  
maybe that other new kid, Todd, but I'd rather cast my lot with you. We should all  
collaborate sometime."  
Luce swallowed hard. She wasn't a pyro. But she was done talking about her past;  
she didn't even feel like defending herself.  
"Ooh, wait until Roland hears," Arriane said, throwing down her rake. "You're  
like our dream come true."**

Arraine:*chuckles*

**Luce opened her mouth to protest, but Arriane had already taken off. Perfect, Luce  
thought, listening to the sound of Arriane's shoes squishing through the mud. Now  
it was only a matter of minutes before word traveled around the cemetery to  
Daniel.  
Alone again, she looked up at the statue. Even though she'd already cleared a huge  
pile of moss and mulch, the angel looked dirtier than ever. The whole project felt  
so pointless. She doubted anyone ever came to visit this place anyway. She also  
doubted that any of the other detainees were still working.  
Her eye just happened to fall on Daniel, who was working. He was very diligently  
using a wire brush to scrub some mold off the bronze inscription on a tomb. He'd  
even pushed up the sleeves of his sweater, and Luce could see his muscles  
straining as he went at it. She sighed, and, she couldn't help it, leaned her elbow  
against the stone angel to watch him.  
He's always been such a hard worker.**

Daniel: (thinking: wow she is starting to remember more…is this good or bad?)

**Luce quickly shook her head. Where had that come from? She had no idea what it  
meant. And yet, she'd been the one who'd thought it. It was the kind of phrase that  
sometimes formed in her mind just before she drifted into sleep. Senseless babble  
she could never assign to anything outside her dreams. But here she was, wide-awake.  
She needed to get a handle on this Daniel thing. She'd known him for one day, and  
already, she could feel herself slipping into a very strange and unfamiliar place.  
"Probably best to stay away from him," a cold voice behind her said.  
Luce whipped around to find Molly, in the same pose she'd found her in yesterday:  
hands on her hips, pierced nostrils flaring.**

Daniel: *growls* *he couldn't help it*

Arraine: (whispers) Bitch.

**Penn had told her that Sword & Cross's  
surprising ruling that allowed facial piercings came from the headmaster's own  
reluctance to remove the diamond stud in his ear.  
"Who?" she asked Molly, knowing she sounded stupid.  
Molly rolled her eyes. "Just trust me when I tell you that falling for Daniel would  
be a very, very bad idea."  
Before Luce could answer, Molly was gone. But Daniel, it was almost as if he'd  
heard his name, was looking straight at her. Then walking straight at her.  
She knew the sun had gone behind a cloud. If she could break his stare, she could  
look up and see it for herself. But she couldn't look up, she couldn't look away,  
and for some reason, she had to squint to see him. Almost like Daniel was creating  
his own light, like he was blinding her. A hollow ringing noise filled up her ears,  
and her knees began to tremble.  
She wanted to pick up her rake and pretend she didn't see him coming. But it was**Bottom of Form

**too late to play it cool.  
"What'd she say to you?" he asked.  
"Um," she hedged, racking her brain for a sensible lie. Finding nothing. She  
cracked her knuckles.**

Daniel: I hate it when she does that.

**Daniel cupped his hand over hers. "I hate it when you do that."**

Arraine: *chuckles*

**Luce jerked away instinctively. His hand on hers had been so fleeting, yet she felt  
her face flush. He meant it was a pet peeve of his, that knuckle cracking  
from anyone would bother him, right? Because to say that he hated it when she did  
that implied that he'd seen her do it before. And he couldn't have. He barely knew  
her.  
Then why did this feel like a fight they'd had before?  
"Molly told me to stay away from you," she said finally.  
Daniel tilted his head from side to side, seeming to consider this. "She's probably  
right."  
Luce shivered. A shadow drifted over them, darkening the angel's face just long  
enough for Luce to worry.**

Everyone:*shivers*

**She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, praying Daniel  
couldn't tell anything was strange.  
But the panic was rising inside her. She wanted to run. She couldn't run. What if  
she got lost in the cemetery?  
Daniel followed her gaze toward ****the sky****. "What is it?"  
"Nothing."  
"So are you going to do it?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest, a dare.  
"What?" she said. Pun?  
Daniel took a step toward her. He was now less than a foot away. She held her  
breath. She kept her body completely still. She waited.  
"Are you going to stay away from me?"  
It almost sounded like he was flirting.  
But Luce was completely out of sorts. Her brow was damp with sweat, and she  
squeezed her temples between two fingers, trying to regain possession of her body,  
trying to take it back from his control. She was totally unprepared to ****flirt**** back.  
That was, if what he was doing was actually flirting.  
She took a step back. "I guess so."  
"Didn't hear you," he whispered, cocking an eyebrow and taking another step  
closer.  
Luce backed up again, farther this time. She practically slammed into the base of  
the statue, and could feel the gritty stone foot of the angel scraping her back. A  
second, darker, colder shadow whooshed over them. She could have sworn Daniel  
shivered along with her.  
And then the deep groan of something heavy startled them both. Luce gasped as  
the top of the marble statue teetered over them, like a tree branch swaying in the  
breeze. For a second, it seemed to hover in the air.**

Arraine: OH MY GOD! They are still trying to kill her!

Cam: We know that ! now read!

**Luce and Daniel stood staring at the angel. Both of them knew it was on its way  
down. The angel's head bowed slowly toward them, like it was praying, and then  
the whole statue picked up speed as it started hurtling down. Luce felt Daniel's  
hand wrap around her waist instantly, tightly, like he knew exactly where she  
began and where she ended. His other hand covered her head and forced her down  
just as the statue toppled over them. Right where they'd been standing. It landed  
with a massive crash, headfirst in the mud, with its feet still resting on the plinth,  
leaving a little triangle underneath, where Daniel and Luce crouched.  
They were panting, nose to nose, Daniel's eyes scared. Between their bodies and  
the statue, there were only a few inches of space.  
"Luce?" he whispered.  
All she could do was nod.  
His eyes narrowed. "What did you see?"  
Then a hand appeared and Luce felt herself being pulled out of the space under the  
statue. There was a scraping against her back and then a waft of air. She saw the  
flicker of daylight again. The detention crew stood gaping, except for Ms. Tross,  
who was glaring, and Cam, who helped Luce to her feet.  
"Are you okay?" Cam asked, running his eyes over her for scrapes and bruises and  
brushing some dirt from her shoulder. "I saw the statue coming down and I ran  
over to try and stop it, but it was already ... You must have been so terrified."  
Luce didn't respond. Terrified was only part of how she'd felt.  
Daniel, already on his feet, didn't even turn around to see whether she was okay or  
not. He just walked away.**

Arraine: Wtf?

Daniel: just read.

**Luce's jaw dropped as she watched him go, as she watched everyone else seem not  
to care that he had bailed.  
"What did you do?" Ms. Tross asked.  
"I don't know. One minute, we were standing there,"Luce glanced at Ms.  
Tross, "um, working. The next thing I knew, the statue just fell over."  
The Albatross bent down to examine the shattered angel. Its head had cracked  
straight down the middle. She started muttering something about forces of nature  
and old stones.  
**

Arraine: That's the end of this Chapter. Next?

Cam: My turn.

Arraine: *Hands book to Cam*

Daniel: I don't like that chapter.

Cam: I wonder why!

Arraine: Shut up just read.

**(A/N) Well hope this one is better. Sorry. Anyways please review! Flames are accepted! ****Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Bottom of Form**


	6. Chapter 6

Reading Fallen Chapter 6

**(I do not own Fallen! Everything belongs to Lauren Kate!)**

Came:*takes the book and begins to read*

**FIVE  
THE INNER CIRCLE  
"Don't ever scare me like that again!" Callie reprimanded Luce on Wednesday  
****evening.  
It was just before sundown and Luce was folded into the Sword & Cross phone  
cubby, a tiny beige confine in the middle of the front office area. It was far from  
private, but at least no one else was loafing around. Her arms were still sore from  
the graveyard shift at yesterday's detention, her pride still wounded from Daniel's  
fleeing the second they'd been pulled out from under the statue.**

Arraine: *gives Daniel a look*

Daniel: you know why.

**But for fifteen  
minutes, Luce was trying hard to push all that out of her mind, to soak up every  
blissfully frantic word her best friend could spit out in the allotted time. It felt so  
good to hear Callie's high-pitched voice, Luce almost didn't care that she was  
being yelled at.  
"We promised we wouldn't go an hour without speaking," Callie continued  
accusingly. "I thought someone had eaten you alive! Or that maybe they stuck you  
in solitary in one of those straitjackets where you have to chew through your sleeve  
to scratch your face. For all I knew, you could have descended into the ninth circle  
of,"  
"Okay, Mom," Luce said, laughing and settling into her role as Callie's breathing  
instructor. "Relax." For a split second, she felt guilty that she hadn't used her one  
phone call to ****dial up**** her real mom. But she knew Callie would wig out if she ever  
discovered Luce hadn't seized her very first opportunity to get in touch. And in a  
weird way, it was always soothing to hear Callie's hysterical voice. It was one of  
the many reasons the two were such a good fit: Her best friend's over-the-top  
paranoia actually had a calming effect on Luce. She could just picture Callie in her  
****dorm room**** at Dover, pacing her bright orange area rug, with Oxy smeared over her  
t-zone and pedicure foam separating her still-wet fuchsia toenails.  
"Don't Mom me!" Callie huffed. "Start talking. What are the other kids like" Are  
they all scary and popping diuretics like in the movies? What about your ****classes****?  
How's the food?"**

Arraine: Dang. This girl needs to take a chill pill.

Daniel: *chuckles*

**Through the phone, Luce could hear Roman Holiday playing in the background on  
Callie's tiny TV. Luce's favorite scene had always been the one where Audrey  
Hepburn woke in Gregory Peck's room, still convinced the night before had all  
been a dream. Luce closed her eyes and tried to picture the shot in her mind.  
Mimicking Audrey's drowsy whisper, she quoted the line she knew Callie would  
recognize: "There was a man, he was so mean to me. It was wonderful."  
"Okay, Princess, it's your life I want to hear about," Callie teased.  
Unfortunately, there was nothing about Sword & Cross that Luce would even  
consider describing as wonderful. Thinking about Daniel for, oh, the eightieth time  
that day, she realized that the only parallel between her life and Roman  
Holiday was that she and Audrey both had a guy who was aggressively rude and  
uninterested in them. Luce rested her head against the beige linoleum of the cubby  
walls. Someone had carved the words BIDING MY TIME. Under normal  
circumstances, this would be when Luce would spill everything about Daniel to  
Callie.  
Except, for some reason, she didn't.  
Whatever she might want to say about Daniel wouldn't be based on anything that  
had actually happened between them. And Callie was big on guys making an effort  
to show they were worthy of you. She'd want to hear things like how many times  
he'd held open a door for Luce, or whether he'd noticed how good her French  
accent was. Callie didn't think there was anything wrong with guys writing the  
kind of sappy love poems Luce could never take seriously. Luce would come up  
severely short on things to say about Daniel. In fact, Callie'd be much more  
interested in hearing about someone like Cam.**

Cam: *smiles*

Daniel: *sigh*

Arraine: oh won't you two stop it! Daniel cheer up! Cam…GET OVER YOURSELF! Now read!

**Well, there is this guy here," Luce whispered into the phone.  
"I knew it!" Callie squealed. "Name."  
Daniel. Daniel. Luce cleared her throat. "Cam."  
"Direct, uncomplicated. I can dig it. Start from the beginning."  
"Well, nothing's really happened yet."  
"He thinks you're gorgeous, blah blah blah. I told you the cropped cut made you  
look like Audrey. Get to the good stuff."  
"Well," Luce broke off. The sound of footsteps in the lobby silenced her. She  
leaned out the side of the cubby and craned her neck to see who was interrupting  
the best fifteen minutes she'd had in three whole days.  
Cam was walking toward her.  
Speak of the devil. She swallowed the horrifically lame words on the tip of her  
tongue: He gave me his guitar pick. She still had it tucked in her pocket.  
**

Cam: *smirks*

Arraine: don't say anything just keep reading. *pissed at Cam*

**Cam's demeanor was casual, as if by some stroke of luck he hadn't heard what  
she'd been saying. He seemed to be the only kid at Sword & Cross who didn't  
change out of his school uniform the minute classes were over. But the black-on-black  
look worked for him, just as much as it worked to make Luce look like a  
grocery store checkout girl.  
Cam was twirling a golden pocket watch that swung from a long chain looped  
around his index finger. Luce followed its bright arc for a moment, almost  
mesmerized, until Cam clapped the face of the watch to a stop in his fist. He  
looked down at it, then up at her.  
"Sorry." His lips pursed in confusion. "I thought I signed up for the seven o-clock  
phone call.? He shrugged. ?But I must have written it down wrong.?  
Luce's heart sank when she glanced at her own watch. She and Callie had barely  
said fifteen words to each other, how could her fifteen minutes already be up?  
"Luce? Hello?" Callie sounded impatient on the other end of the phone. "You're  
being weird. Is there something you're not telling me? Have you replaced me  
already with some reform school cutter? What about the boy?"  
"Shhh," Luce hissed into the phone. "Cam, wait," she called, holding the phone  
away from her mouth. He was already halfway out the door. "Just a second, I  
was, "she swallowed, "I was just getting off."  
Cam slipped the pocket watch into the front of his black blazer and doubled back  
toward Luce. He raised his eyebrows and laughed when he heard Callie's voice  
growing louder from the earpiece. "Don't you dare hang up on me," Callie  
protested. "You've told me nothing. Nothing!"  
"I don't want to piss anyone off," Cam joked, gesturing at the barking telephone.  
"Take my slot, you can get me back another time."  
"No," Luce said quickly. As badly as she wanted to keep talking to Callie, she  
imagined Cam probably felt the same way about whomever he'd come here to call.  
And unlike a lot of the people at this school, Cam had been nothing but nice to her.**

Cam: *smiles*

Arraine: He is just hitting on you Luce! Run away!

Cam: she can't hear you, you know that right? Your talking to a book.

Arraine: It's hard not to talk. It's like a freakin soap opera!

Daniel: yeah it is

**She didn't want to make him give up his turn at the telephone, especially now,  
when she'd be way too nervous to gossip with Callie about him.  
"Callie," she said, sighing into the phone. "I gotta go. I'll call again as soon as,"  
But by then there was just the vague buzz of a dial tone in her ear. The phone itself  
had been rigged to cap each call at fifteen minutes. Now she saw the tiny timer  
blinking 0:00 on its base. They hadn't even gotten to say goodbye and now she'd  
have to wait another whole week to call. Time stretched out in Luce's mind like an  
endless gulf.  
"BFF?" Cam asked, leaning up against the cubby next to Luce. His dark eyebrows  
were still arched. "I've got three younger sisters, I can practically smell the best friend  
vibe through the phone." He bent forward as if he was going to sniff Luce,  
which made her chuckle ... and then freeze. His unexpected closeness had made  
her heart pick up.  
"Let me guess." Cam straightened back up and lifted his chin. "She wanted to  
know all about the reform school bad boys?"  
"No!" Luce shook her head to deny vehemently that guys were on her mind at  
all ... until she realized Cam was only kidding. She blushed and took a stab at  
joking back. "I mean, I told her there's not a single good one here."  
Cam blinked. "Precisely what makes it so exciting. Don't you think?" He had a  
way of standing very still, which made Luce stand very still, which made the  
ticking sound of the pocket watch inside his blazer seem louder than it possibly  
could have been.  
Frozen next to Cam, Luce suddenly shivered as something black swooped into the  
hall. The shadow seemed to hopscotch across the panels in the ceiling in a very  
deliberate way, blacking out one and then the next and then the next. Damn. It was  
never good to be alone with someone, especially someone as focused on her as  
Cam was at the moment, when the shadows arrived. She could feel herself  
twitching, trying to appear calm as the darkness swirled around the ceiling fan in a  
dance. That alone she could have endured. Maybe. But the shadow was also  
making the worst of its terrible noises, a sound like the one Luce had heard when  
she'd watched a baby owl fall from its palmetto tree and choke to death. She  
wished Cam would just stop looking at her. She wished something would happen  
to divert his attention. She wished?  
Daniel Grigori would walk in.**

Cam: *frowns*

Arraine: awww she still has it bad for you Daniel!

Daniel: *can't help but smile*

**And then he did. Saved by the gorgeous boy wearing holey jeans and a holier  
white T-shirt. He didn't look much like salvation, slouched over his heavy stack  
**

**of library books, gray bags under his gray eyes. Daniel actually looked kind of  
wrecked. His blond hair drooped over his eyes, and when they settled on Luce and  
Cam, Luce watched them narrow. She was so busy fretting over what she'd done  
to annoy Daniel this time, she almost didn't realize the momentous thing that  
happened: The second before the lobby door closed behind him, the shadow  
slipped through it and into the night. It was like someone had taken a vacuum and  
cleared out all the grit from the hall.  
Daniel just nodded in their direction and didn't slow down as he passed.  
When Luce looked at Cam, he was watching Daniel. He turned to Luce and said,  
more loudly than he needed to, "I almost forgot to tell you. Having a little party in  
my room tonight after Social. I'd love for you to come."  
Daniel was still within earshot. Luce had no idea what this Social thing was, but  
she was supposed to meet Penn beforehand. They were supposed to walk over  
together.  
Her eyes were fixed on the back of Daniel's head, and she knew she needed to  
answer Cam about his party, and it really shouldn't be so hard, but when Daniel  
turned around and looked back at her with eyes she swore were mournful, the  
phone behind her started ringing, and Cam reached for it and said, "I've got to take  
this, Luce. You'll be there?"  
Almost imperceptibly, Daniel nodded.  
"Yes," Luce told Cam. "Yes."**

Cam: *smiles*

Arraine: Stop smiling!

Cam: *smiles again*

Arraine: *annoyed*

**"I still don't see why we have to run," Luce was panting twenty minutes later. She  
was trying to keep up with Penn as they scrambled back across the commons  
toward the auditorium for the mysterious Wednesday Night Social, which Penn  
still hadn't explained. Luce had barely enough to time to make it upstairs to her  
room, to slick on lip gloss and her better jeans just in case it was that kind of  
social. She was still trying to slow her breath down from her run-in with  
Cam and Daniel when Penn barged into her room to drag her back out the door.  
"People who are chronically tardy never understand the many ways in which they  
screw up the schedules of people who are punctual and normal," Penn told Luce as  
they splashed through a particularly soggy portion of the lawn.  
"Ha!" A laugh erupted behind them.  
Luce looked back and felt her face light up when she saw Arriane's pale, skinny  
frame jogging to catch up with them. "Which quack said you were normal, Penn?"  
Arriane nudged Luce and pointed down. "Watch out for the quicksand!"  
Luce sloshed to a halt just before she'd have landed in a scarily muddy patch on  
the lawn. "Somebody please tell me where we're going!"  
"Wednesday night," Penn said flatly. "Social Night."  
"Like ... a dance or something?" Luce asked, visions of Daniel and Cam already  
moving across the dance floor of her mind.  
Arriane hooted. "A dance with death by boredom. The term "social" is typical  
Sword & Cross doublespeak. See, they're required to schedule social events for us,  
but they are also terrified of scheduling social events for us. Sticky predicky."  
"So instead," Penn added, "they have these really awful events like movie nights  
followed by lectures about the movie, or, God, do you remember last semester?"  
"There was that whole symposium on taxidermy,"  
"So, so creepy." Penn shook her head.  
"Tonight, my dear," Arriane drawled, "we get off easy. All we have to do is snore  
through one of the three movies on rotation in the Sword & Cross video library.  
Which one do you think it'll be tonight, Pennyloafer? Starman? Joe Versus the  
Volcano? Or Weekend at Bernie?s?"  
"It's Starman. "Penn groaned.  
Arriane shot Luce a baffled look. "She knows everything."  
"Hold on," Luce said, tiptoeing around the quicksand and lowering her voice to a  
whisper as they approached the front office of the school. "If you've all seen these  
movies so many times, why the rush to get here?"  
Penn pulled open the heavy metal doors to the "auditorium," which, Luce realized,  
was a euphemism for a regular old room with low, drop-paneled ceilings and  
chairs arranged to face a blank white wall.  
"Don't want to get stuck in the hot seat next to Mr. Cole," Arriane explained,  
pointing at the teacher. His nose was buried deep inside a thick book, and he was  
surrounded by the few remaining empty chairs in the room.  
As the three girls stepped through the metal detector at the door, Penn said,  
"Whoever sits there has to help pass out his weekly "mental health" surveys." **

Arraine: ugh I hate that!

Cam&Daniel: *nod agreements*

**"Which wouldn't be so bad," Arriane chimed in.  
",if you didn't have to stay late to analyze the findings," Penn finished.  
"Thereby missing," Arriane said with a grin, steering Luce toward the second row  
as she whispered, "the after-party."  
Finally they'd gotten down to the heart of the matter. Luce chuckled.  
"I heard about that," she said, feeling slightly with it for a change. "It's in Cam's  
room, right?"  
Arriane looked at Luce for a second and ran her tongue across her teeth. Then she  
looked past, almost through, Luce. "Hey, Todd," she called, waving with just the  
tips of her fingers. She pushed Luce into one seat, claimed the safe spot next to her  
(still two seats down from Mr. Cole), and patted the hot seat. "Come sit with us, T-man!"  
Todd, who'd been shifting his weight in the doorway, looked immensely relieved  
to be given the directive, any directive. He started toward them, swallowing. No  
sooner had he fumbled into the seat than Mr. Cole looked up from his book,  
cleaned his glasses on his handkerchief, and said, "Todd, I'm glad you're here. I'm  
wondering if you can help me with a small favor after the film. You see, the Venn  
diagram is a very useful tool for ..."**

Daniel: that was cold

Arraine: Hey it was either him or Luce.

Cam: you do know this hasn't even happened yet right?

Arraine: oh ya huh

**"Mean!" Penn popped her face up between Arriane and Luce.  
Arriane shrugged and produced a giant bag of popcorn from her carpetbag. "I can  
only look after so many new students," she said, tossing a buttery kernel at Luce.  
"Lucky you."  
As the lights in the room dimmed, Luce looked around until her eyes landed on  
Cam. She thought about her abbreviated dish session on the phone with Callie, and  
how her friend always said that watching a movie with a guy was the best way to  
get to know things about him, things that might not come out in a conversation.  
Looking at Cam, Luce thought she knew what Callie meant: There would be  
something sort of thrilling about glancing out of the corner of her eye to see what  
jokes Cam thought were funny, to join his laughter with her own.  
When his eyes met hers, Luce felt an embarrassed instinct to look away. But then,  
before she could, Cam's face lit up in a broad smile. It made her feel remarkably  
unabashed about being caught staring. When he put his hand up in a wave, Luce  
couldn't help thinking about how the exact opposite had happened the few times  
Daniel had caught her looking at him.**

Arraine: *clears her throat*

Danial: just keep reading

**Daniel rolled in with Roland, late enough that Randy had already taken a head  
count, late enough that the only remaining seats were on the floor at the front of the  
room. He passed through the beam of light from the projector and Luce noticed for  
the first time a silver chain around his neck, and some sort of medallion tucked  
inside his T-shirt. Then he dipped completely out of her view. She couldn't even  
see his profile.  
As it turned out, Starman wasn't very funny, but the other students' constant Jeff  
Bridges impersonations were. It was hard for Luce to stay focused on the plot.  
Plus, she was getting that uncomfortable icy feeling at the back of her neck.  
Something was about to happen.  
When the shadows came this time, Luce was expecting them. Then she started to  
think about it and counted a tally on her fingers. The shadows had been popping up  
at an increasingly alarming rate, and Luce couldn't figure out whether she was just  
nervous at Sword & Cross ... or whether it meant something else. They'd never  
been this bad before...**

Arraine: Its because your around Daniel! And he has feelings for you!

Cam: It's just a book at the moment! It hasn't happened yet! Get a grip!

Arraine: Shut up Cam!

Luce: *walks in* whacha guys reading?

Daniel: nothing!

Luce: *frowns* It doesn't look like nothing *crosses her arms*

Daniel: what are you doing here.

Luce: I came because _she _told me to.

Arraine: who told you to?

Luce: The Book Keeper.

Everyone but Luce: *gasp!*

Luce: What?

Arraine: I guess you better have a seat then.

Daniel: this will not end good.

Luce: Well then just feel lucky I'm from when this already happened.

Everyone: What?

Luce: She sent me back. Once the book is finished I will go back to my own time period. Until then I am stuck here.

Daniel: *nods his head* she has done this to people before.

Luce: I heard. What part of my life are you at? *frowns*

Arraine: when the shadows are scaring you at your first Social.

Luce: got it . please continue.

Daniel: *looks at Luce*

Arraine: are you going to stare at Luce all night or are you going to pay attention.

Luce&Daniel: *blushes*

**They oozed overhead in the auditorium, then slithered along the sides of the movie  
screen, and finally traced the lines of the floorboards like spilled ink. Luce gripped  
the bottom of her chair and felt an ache of fear swell through her legs and arms.**

**She tightened all the muscles in her body, but she couldn't keep from trembling. A  
squeeze on her left knee made her look over at Arriane.  
"You okay?" Arriane mouthed.  
Luce nodded and hugged her shoulders, pretending she was merely cold. She  
wished she was, but this particular chill had nothing to do with Sword & Cross's  
overzealous air conditioner.  
She could feel the shadows tugging at her feet under her chair. They stayed like  
that, deadweight for the whole movie, and every minute dragged on like an  
eternity.  
An hour later, Arriane pressed her eye up against the peephole of Cam's bronze painted  
dorm room door. "Yoo-hoo," she sang, giggling. "The festivities are  
here!"  
She produced a hot-pink feather boa from the same magic carpetbag the bag of  
popcorn had come from. "Give me a boost," she said to Luce, dangling her foot in **

**the air.  
Luce hooked her fingers together and positioned them under Arriane's black boot.  
She watched as Arriane pushed off the ground and used the boa to cover the face  
of the hallway surveillance camera while she reached around the back of the device  
and switched it off.  
"That's not suspicious or anything," Penn said.**

Luce: *frowns at the mention of Penn's name*

Arraine: *curious but continues*

**"Does your allegiance lie with the after-party?" Arriane shot back. "Or the red  
party?"  
"I'm just saying there are smarter ways." Penn snorted as Arriane hopped down.  
Arriane slung the boa over Luce's shoulders, and Luce laughed and started to  
shimmy to the Motown song they could hear through the door. But when Luce  
offered the boa to Penn for a turn, she was surprised to see her still looking  
nervous. Penn was biting her nails and sweating at the brow. Penn wore six  
sweaters in the swampy southern September heat, she was never hot.  
"What's wrong?" Luce whispered, leaning in.  
Penn picked at the hem of her sleeve and shrugged. She looked like she was just  
about to answer when the door behind them opened up. A whoosh of cigarette  
smoke, blasting music, and suddenly Cam's open arms greeted them.  
"You made it," he said, smiling at Luce. Even in the dim light, his lips had a berry-stained  
glow. When he folded her in for a hug, she felt tiny and safe. It lasted only  
a second; then he turned to nod hello at the other two girls, and Luce felt a little  
proud to have been the one who got the hug.  
Behind Cam, the small, dark room was crammed with people. Roland was in one  
corner, at the turntable, holding up records to a black light. The couple Luce had  
seen on the quad a few days before cozied up against the window. The preppy boys  
with the white oxford shirts were all huddled up together, occasionally checking  
out the girls. Arriane wasted no time shooting across the room toward Cam's desk,  
which looked like it was doubling as a bar.**

Arraine: of course!

**Almost immediately, she had a  
champagne bottle between her legs and was laughing as she tried to pry off the  
cork.  
Luce was baffled. She hadn't even known how to get booze at Dover, where the  
outside world had been a lot less off-limits. Cam had been back at Sword & Cross  
for only a few days, but already, he seemed to know how to smuggle everything he  
needed to throw a Dionysian soirée the entire school showed up to. And somehow  
everyone else inside thought this was normal.  
Still standing at the threshold, she heard the pop, then the cheers from the rest of  
the crowd, then Arriane's voice calling out: "Lucindaaa, get in here. I'm about to  
make a toast."**

Arraine&Daniel: *chuckles*

Arraine: coming from me it will be an awesome toast!

**Luce could feel the party's magnetism, but Penn looked much less ready to budge.'  
"You go ahead," she said, waving a hand at Luce.  
"What's wrong? You don't want to go in?" The truth was, Luce was a little  
nervous herself. She had no idea what might go down at these things, and since she  
still wasn't sure how reliable Arriane was, it would definitely make her feel better  
to have Penn at her side.**

Arraine: gee thanks Luce.

Luce: don't mention it!

**But Penn frowned. "I'm ... I'm out of my element. I do libraries ... workshops on  
how to use PowerPoint. You want a file hacked into, I'm your girl. But this?" She  
stood on tiptoes and peered into the room. "I don't know. People in there just think  
I'm some kind of know-it-all."  
Luce attempted her best give-me-a-break frown. "And they think I'm a slab of  
meat loaf, and we think they're all totally bananas." She laughed. "Can't we all just  
get along?" Slowly Penn curled her lip, then took the feather boa and draped it  
around her shoulders. "Oh, all right," she said, clomping inside ahead of Luce.  
Luce blinked as her eyes adjusted. A cacophony filled the room, but she could hear  
Arriane's laughing voice. Cam shut the door behind her and tugged Luce's hand so  
she'd hang back, away from the heart of the party.**

Luce: *has a disgusted look on her face*

Daniel: *raises his eye brows* Luce?

Luce: Just read.**  
"I'm really glad you came," he said, putting his hand on the small of her back and  
bending his head so she could hear him in the loud room. Those lips looked almost  
tasty, especially when they said things like "I jumped up every time someone  
knocked, hoping it'd be you."**

Luce: (under her breath) yeah I bet you did.

Cam: what?

Luce: nothing.

**Whatever had drawn Cam to her so quickly, Luce didn't want to do anything to  
mess it up. He was popular and unexpectedly thoughtful, and his attention made  
her feel more than flattered. It made her feel more comfortable in this strange new  
place. She knew if she tried to respond to his compliment, she'd stumble over the  
words. So she just laughed, which made him laugh, and then he pulled her in for****Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**Top of Form**

**Top of Form**

**Bottom of Form**

**a****Bottom of Form**

**nother hug.  
Suddenly there was no place to put her own hands but around his neck. She felt a  
little light-headed as Cam squeezed her, lifting her feet slightly off the ground.  
When he put her back down, Luce turned to the rest of the party, and the first thing  
she saw was Daniel. But she didn't think he liked Cam.**

Daniel: *grunts in approval*

Cam: *rolls his eyes*

Luce: *crosses her arms*

**Still, he was sitting cross-legged  
on the bed, his white T-shirt glowing violet in the black light. As soon as  
her eyes found him, it was hard to look anywhere else. Which didn't make sense,  
because a gorgeous and friendly guy was standing right behind her, asking her  
what she'd like to drink. The other gorgeous, infinitely less friendly guy sitting  
across from her should not be the one she couldn't stop looking at. And he was  
staring at her. So intently, with a cryptic, squinting look in his eyes that Luce  
thought she'd never decode, even if she saw it a thousand times.  
All she knew was the effect it had on her. Everyone else in the room went out of  
focus and she melted. She could have stared back all night if it hadn't been for  
Arriane, who had climbed on top of the desk and called out to Luce, her glass  
raised in the air.**

Luce&Daniel: *look at Arraine*

Arraine: what? It hasn't happened yet remember.

Luce: It has for me.

Arraine: you don't count.

Luce: *chuckles*

**"To Luce," she toasted, giving Luce a saintly smile. "Who was obviously zoning  
and missed my entire welcome speech and who will never know how utterly  
fabulous it was, wasn't it fabulous, Ro?" she leaned down to ask Roland, who  
patted her ankle affirmatively.  
Cam slipped a plastic cup of champagne into Luce's hand. She blushed and tried to  
laugh it off as the whole rest of the party echoed, "To Luce! To Meat Loaf!"**

Luce: *laughs* That's right! Everyone called me meat loaf! Hahahaha

Arraine: you forgot that? What made you forget?

Luce: I had other things on my mind.

Daniel: *raises eye brows.*

Luce: *looks strait at Daniel* you would never be able to guess.

Daniel: lets read and find out.

**At her side, Molly slithered up and whispered a shorter version in her ear: "To  
Luce, who will never know."  
A few days before, Luce would have flinched away. Tonight, she simply rolled her  
eyes, then turned her back on Molly. The girl had never said a word that didn't  
leave Luce feeling bitten, but showing it seemed only to egg her on. So Luce just  
hunkered down to share the desk chair with Penn, who handed her a rope of black  
licorice.  
"Can you believe it? I think I'm actually having fun," Penn said, chewing happily.  
Luce bit down on the licorice and took a tiny sip of the fizzy champagne. Not a  
very palatable combination. Kind of like her and Molly. "So is Molly that evil to  
everyone, or am I a special case?"  
For a second Penn looked like she was going to give a different answer, but then  
she patted Luce on the back. "Just her usual charming demeanor, my dear."**

Luce: *chuckles* riiiight

Everyone: *looks at her*  
Luce: sorry it had to come out.

Daniel: *smiles*

**Luce looked around the room at all the free-flowing champagne, at Cam's fancy  
vintage turntable, at the disco ball spinning over their heads, casting stars on  
everyone's faces.  
"Where do they get all this stuff?" she wondered aloud.  
"People say Roland can smuggle anything into Sword & Cross," Penn said matterof-  
factly. "Not that I've ever asked him."  
Maybe this was what Arriane meant when she said Roland knew how to get things.  
The only off-limits item Luce could imagine wanting badly enough to ask about  
was a cell phone. But then ... Cam had said not to listen to Arriane about the inner  
workings of the school. Which would have been fine, except so much of his party  
seemed to be courtesy of Roland. The more she tried to untangle her questions, the  
less things added up. She should probably stick to being just "in" enough to get  
invited to the parties.  
"Okay, all you rejects," Roland said loudly to get everyone's attention. The record  
player had quieted down to the static between songs. "We're going to start the  
open-mike portion of the night, and I'm taking requests for karaoke."  
"Daniel Grigori!" Arriane hooted through her hands.**

Luce: *burst out laughing*

Daniel: what?

Luce: *in between gasps* nothing…just…oh my!

Daniel: *looks confused*

Arraine: is it the intention behind it?

Luce: *nods her head*

Daniel: Luce, how much do you know about me?

Luce: That I cannot tell you. Sorry.

Daniel: *frowns* I understand.

Luce: *weak smile*

**"No!" Daniel hooted back without missing a beat.  
"Aww, the silent Grigori sits another one out," Roland said into the microphone.  
"You sure you don't want to do your version of "Hellhound on My Trail,?"  
"I believe that's your song, Roland," Daniel said. A faint smile spread across his  
lips, but Luce got the feeling it was an embarrassed smile, a someone-else-take-the-  
spotlight-please smile.  
"He's got a point, folks." Roland laughed. "Though karaoke-ing Robert Johnson  
has been known to clear out a room." He plucked an R. L. Burnside album from  
the stack and cued the record player in the corner. "Let's go down south instead."  
As the bass notes of an electric guitar picked up, Roland took center stage, which  
was really just a few square feet of moonlit empty space in the middle of the room.  
Everyone else was clapping or stomping their feet in time, but Daniel was looking **

**down at his watch. She kept seeing the image of him nodding at her in the lobby  
earlier that night, when Cam invited her to the party. Like Daniel wanted her there  
for some reason. Of course, now that she'd shown up, he made no move to  
acknowledge her existence.**

Luce: *frowns. She can't help it*

Daniel: *looks at Luce and frowns. He probably had a reason.*

**If only she could get him alone  
Roland so monopolized the attention of the guests that only Luce noticed when,  
midway through the song, Daniel stood up, edged himself around Molly and Cam,  
and slipped silently out the door.  
This was her chance. While everyone around her was applauding, Luce slowly got  
to her feet.**

Luce: *sigh*

Daniel: (still looking at Luce) *sighs*

**"Encore!" Arriane called out. Then, noticing Luce rising from her chair, she said,  
"Oh, snap, is that my girl stepping up to sing?"**

Luce: *slaps her head into her hands*

Arraine: *chuckles*

**"No!" Luce did not want to sing in front of this roomful of people any more than  
she wanted to admit the real reason why she was standing up. But there she was,  
standing right in the middle of her first party at Sword & Cross, with Roland  
thrusting the mike under her chin. Now what?  
"I-I just feel bad for, uh, Todd. That he's missing out." Luce's voiced echoed  
back to her over the speakers. She was already regretting her bad lie, and the fact  
that there was no turning back now. "I thought I'd run down and see if he's done  
with Mr. Cole."  
None of the other kids seemed to know quite what to do with this. Only Penn  
called out timidly, "Hurry back!"  
Molly was smirking down her nose at Luce. "Geek love," she said, fake-swooning.  
"So romantic."**

Luce: *glares*

**Wait, did they think she liked Todd? Oh, who cared, the one person Luce would  
really not want thinking that was the one person she'd been trying to follow  
outside.  
Ignoring Molly, Luce scooted toward the door, where Cam met her with crossed  
arms. "Want company?" he asked hopefully.  
She shook her head. On any other errand, she probably would have wanted Cam's  
company. But not right now.  
"I'll be right back," she said brightly. Before she could ****register**** the disappointment  
on his face, she slinked out into the hall. After the roar of the party, the quiet rang  
in her ears. It took a second before she could make out hushed voices just around  
the corner.  
Daniel. She'd recognize his voice anywhere.**

Daniel: *sighs*

Luce: oh hush up!

Daniel: sorry

Luce: *chuckles*

**But she was less certain who he was  
talking to. A girl.  
"Ah, m sorrrry," whoever she was said ... with a distinctive southern twang.  
Gabbe? Daniel had been sneaking out to see blond and airbrushed Gabbe?  
"It won't happen again," Gabbe continued, "I swear to,"**

Luce: you know, I never did figure out what the heck you two were talking about.

Daniel: so you have figured out a lot have you?

Luce: I never said that!

Daniel: you didn't have to.

Luce: don't try to guess what I know. I could end bad.

Daniel: *very curious but she has a point. He shouldn't. too bad he can't stop himself*

**"It can't happen again," Daniel whispered, but his tone practically  
screamed lovers " quarrel. "**

"**You promised you'd be there, and you weren''t."  
Where? When? Luce was in agony. She inched along the hallway, trying not to  
make a sound.  
But the two of them had fallen silent. Luce could picture Daniel taking Gabbe's  
hands in his. Could picture him leaning in to her for a long, deep kiss. A sheet of  
all-consuming envy spread across Luce's chest. Around the corner, one of them  
sighed.  
"You're going to have to trust me, honey," she heard Gabbe say, in a saccharine  
voice that made Luce decide once and for all that she hated her. "I'm the only one  
you've got."**

Cam: that's the end of this chapter. Whose next?

Arraine: I nominate Luce!

Luce: I already lived it.

Arraine: now you are going to read it!

Luce Yes mam!*takes book*

Daniel: *just shakes his head*

**(A/N) alright folks did ya like what I did with the whole Luce coming back from the future thing? I think it makes it more exciting. Anyways: Please review! Flames are accepted!**


	7. Chapter 7

Reading Fallen Chapter 7

**( I do not own Fallen! Everything belongs to Lauren Kate! Also I do not own Frozen by Within Temptation! Just thought it would be random if one of the characters started singing it.)**

Luce: *begins to read*

**SIX  
NO SALVATION  
**

Daniel: what does that mean?

Luce: Let me read and you will find out.

Daniel:*laughs* ok

**Bright and early Thursday morning, a loudspeaker crackled to life in the hallway  
outside Luce's room:  
"Attention, Sword & Crosstians!"  
Luce rolled over with a groan, but as hard as she crammed the pillow around her  
ears, it did little to block out Randy's bark over the PA.  
"You have exactly nine minutes to report to the gymnasium for your annual fitness  
examination. As you know, we take a dim view of stragglers, so be prompt and be  
ready for bodily assessment."  
Fitness examination? Bodily assessment? At six-thirty in the morning? Luce had  
already been regretting staying out so late last night ... and staying up so much later  
lying in bed, stressing.  
Right around the time she started imagining Daniel and Gabbe kissing, Luce had  
begun to feel queasy, that specific kind of queasiness that came from knowing  
she'd made a fool of herself.**

Luce: *chuckles*

Daniel: what? Why are you laughing?

Luce: Nothing

Daniel: It's something.

Luce: *sigh* can't tell you.

Daniel: OK

**There was no going back to the party. There was only  
prying herself off the wall and slinking back to her dorm room to second-guess that  
strange feeling she got around Daniel, the one she'd foolishly taken as some sort of  
connection. She'd woken up with the bad taste of the party's aftermath still in her  
mouth. The last thing she wanted to think about now was fitness.  
She swung her feet off the bed and onto the cold vinyl floor. Brushing her teeth,  
she tried to picture what Sword & Cross might mean by "bodily assessment."  
Intimidating images of her fellow students, Molly doing dozens of mean-faced  
chin-ups, Gabbe effortlessly ascending a thirty-foot rope toward the sky, flooded  
her mind. Her only shot at not making a fool of herself, again, was to try to put  
Daniel and Gabbe out of her mind.  
She crossed the south side of ****campus**** to the gymnasium. It was a large Gothic  
structure with flying buttresses and fieldstone turrets that made it look more like a  
church than a place where one would go to break a sweat. As Luce approached the  
building, the layer of kudzu coating its facade rustled in the morning breeze.  
"Penn," Luce called out, spotting her tracksuit-clad friend lacing up her sneakers  
on a bench. Luce looked down at her regulation black clothes and black boots and  
suddenly panicked that she'd missed some memo about dress code. But then, some  
of the other students were loitering outside the building and none of them looked  
much different than she did.  
Penn's eyes were groggy. "So beat," she moaned. "I karaoke-d way too hard last  
night. Thought I'd compensate by trying to at least look athletic." Luce laughed as  
Penn fumbled with the double knot on her shoe.  
"What happened to you last night, anyway?" Penn asked. "You never came back to  
the party."  
"Oh," Luce said, stalling. "I decided to,"  
"Gaaahh." Penn covered her ears. "Every sound is like a jackhammer in my brain.  
Tell me later?"**

Everyone: *giggles*

**"Yeah," Luce said. "Sure." The double doors to the gym were thrust open. Randy  
stepped out in heavy rubber clogs, holding her ever-present clipboard. She waved  
the students forward, and one by one they filed past to be assigned their fitness  
station.  
"Todd Hammond," Randy called as the wobbly-kneed kid approached. Todd's  
shoulders caved forward like parentheses, and Luce could see remnants of a  
serious farmer's tan on the back of his neck.  
"Weights," Randy commanded, chucking Todd inside.  
"Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood," she bellowed next, causing Penn to cower  
and press her palms against her ears again. "Pool," Randy instructed, reaching into  
a ****cardboard box**** behind her and tossing Penn a red one-piece Speedo racer-back.  
"Lucinda Price," Randy continued, after consulting her list. Luce stepped forward  
and was relieved when Randy said, "Also pool."**

Daniel:(thinking) she is really good at swimming. *smiles*

**Luce reached up to catch the one-piece  
bathing suit in the air. It was stretched out and thin as a piece of parchment  
between her fingers. At least it smelled clean. Sort of.  
"Gabrielle Givens," Randy said next, and Luce whipped around to see her new  
least-favorite person sashay up in short black shorts and a thin black tank top.  
She'd been at this school for three days ... how had she already gotten Daniel?**

Daniel: *sighs*

**"Hiii, Randy," Gabbe said, drawing out the words with a twang that made Luce  
want to pull a Penn and cover her own ears.**

Everyone: *chuckles*

**Anything but pool, Luce willed. Anything but pool.  
"Pool," Randy said.  
Walking next to Penn toward the girls' locker room, Luce tried to avoid looking  
back at Gabbe, who twirled what seemed to be the only fashionable bathing suit in  
the stack around her French-manicured index finger. Instead, Luce focused on the  
gray stone walls and the old religious paraphernalia covering them. She walked  
past ornately carved wooden crosses with their bas-relief depictions of the Passion.  
A series of faded triptychs hung at eye level, with only the orbs of the figures'  
halos still aglow. Luce leaned forward to get a better look at a large scroll written  
in Latin, encased in glass.  
"Uplifting decor, isn't it?" Penn asked, throwing back a couple of aspirin with a  
swig of water from her bag.  
"What is all this stuff?" Luce asked.  
"Ancient history. The only surviving relics from when this place was still the site  
of Sunday Mass, back in Civil War days."  
"That explains why it looks so much like a church," Luce said, pausing in front of  
a marble reproduction of Michelangelo's piety.  
"Like everything else in this hellhole, they did a totally half-assed job of updating  
it. I mean, who builds a pool in the middle of an old church?"  
"You're joking," Luce said.  
"I wish." Penn rolled her eyes. "Every summer, the headmaster gets it in his little  
mind to try and stick me with the task of redecorating this place. He won't admit it,  
but all the God stuff really freaks him out," she said. "Problem is, even if I did feel  
like pitching in, I'd have no idea what to do with all this junk, or even how to clear**

**i****Top of Form**

**I ****t out without offending, like, everyone and God."  
Luce thought back to the immaculate white walls inside Dover's gymnasium, row  
after row of professionally shot varsity championship pictures, each matted with  
the same navy card stock, each showcased in a matching golden frame. The only  
hallway more hallowed at Dover was its entryway, which was where all the  
alumni-turned-state-senators and Guggenheim fellowship winners and run-of-the-mill  
billionaires displayed their head shots.  
"You could hang all the current alumni's mug shots," Gabbe offered from behind  
them.  
Luce started to laugh, it was funny ... and strange, almost like Gabbe had just read  
her mind, but then she remembered the girl's voice the night before, telling  
Daniel she was the only one he had. Luce quickly swallowed any notion of a  
connection with her.**

Cam&Arraine: *laughs then glares at each other*

Luce: It's not funny.

Daniel: No it isn't.

Arraine: yeah it is!

Luce: It's not my fault!

Arraine: Then whose is it then? *eyebrow raised*

Luce: *clamps mouth shut so she doesn't spill the beans*

Arraine: you know something. Spill!

Luce: Never!

Arraine: *jumps on Luce* spill

Luce: No.

Daniel: Luce? Can you please just tell us. Before Arraine has a bigger fit? *stood up once Arraine jumped on Luce*

Luce: I'm sorry but I can't.

Daniel: *nods* Arraine just let her go so she can keep reading.

Arraine: fine. We will probably find out from the book anyways.

**"You're straggling!" yelled an unknown gym coach, appearing from nowhere.  
She, at least Luce thought she was a she, had a frizzy wad of brown hair pulled  
back in a ponytail, calves like ham hocks, and yellowing "invisible" braces  
covering her top teeth. She hustled the girls angrily into a locker room, where each  
was given a padlock with a key and directed toward an empty locker with a shove.  
"Nobody straggles on Coach Diante's watch."  
Luce and Penn scrambled into their faded, baggy bathing suits, Luce shuddered at  
her reflection in the mirror, then covered as much of herself as she could with her  
towel.  
Inside the humid natatorium, she instantly understood what Penn was talking  
about. The pool itself was giant, Olympic-sized, one of the few state-of-the-art  
features she'd encountered so far on this campus. But that wasn't what made it  
remarkable, Luce realized in awe. This pool had been set down right in the middle  
of what used to be a massive church.  
There was a row of pretty stained-glass windows, with only a few broken panels,  
spanning the walls near the high, arched ceiling. There were candlelit stone niches  
along the wall. A diving board had been installed where the altar probably used to  
be. If Luce had not been raised agnostic, but rather as a God-fearing churchgoer,  
like the rest of her friends in elementary school, she might have thought this place  
was sacrilegious.  
Some of the other students were already in the water, gasping for air as they  
completed their laps. But it was the students who weren't in the water who held  
Luce's attention. Molly, Roland, and Arriane were all spread out on the bleachers  
along the wall. They were cracking up about something. Roland was practically  
doubled over, and Arriane was wiping away tears. They were in much more  
attractive bathing suits than Luce, but not one of them looked like they had any  
intention of making a move toward the pool.  
Luce picked at her saggy one-piece. She wanted to go join Arriane, but just as she  
was weighing the pros (possible entrance into an elite world) and cons (Coach  
Diante berating her as a conscientious objector to exercise), Gabbe sauntered over  
to the group. Like she was already best friends with all of them. She took a seat  
right next to Arriane and immediately started laughing, too, like whatever the joke  
was, she already got it.  
"They always have notes to sit out," Penn explained, glaring at the popular crowd  
on the bleachers. "Don't ask me how they get away with it."  
Luce hemmed and hawed at the side of the pool, unable to tune in to Coach  
Diante's instructions. Seeing Gabbe et al. clustered on the bleachers cool-kids-style  
made Luce wish that Cam were there. She could picture him looking buff in a  
sleek black bathing suit, waving her over to the crew with his big smile, making  
her feel immediately welcome, even important.  
Luce felt a gnawing need to apologize for ducking out of his party early. Which  
was strange, they weren't together, so it wasn't like Luce was obligated to explain  
her comings and goings to Cam. But at the same time, she liked it when he paid  
attention to her. She liked the way he smelled, kind of free and open, like driving  
with the windows down at night.**

Cam: *smiles*

Luce: (mumbles) not any more.

**She liked the way he tuned in to her completely  
when she talked, holding still like he couldn't see or hear anyone but her. She'd  
even liked being lifted off her feet at the party, in plain view of Daniel. She didn't  
want to do anything to make Cam reconsider the way he treated her.  
When the coach's whistle blew, a very startled Luce stood straight up, then looked**

**down regretfully as Penn and the other students near her all jumped forward, into  
the pool.  
She looked to Coach Diante for guidance.  
"You must be Lucinda Price, always late and never listens," Coach sighed.  
"Randy told me about you. It's eight laps, pick your best stroke."  
Luce nodded and stood with her toes curled over the edge. She used to love to  
swim. When her dad taught her how at the Thunderbolt community pool, she'd  
even been given an award as youngest kid ever to brave the deep end without  
floaties.**

Daniel: *smiles. She always was a good swimmer*

**But that was years ago. Luce couldn't even remember the last time she'd  
swum. The heated outdoor Dover pool had always sparkled, tempting her, but it  
was closed to anyone who wasn't on the swim team.  
Coach Diante cleared her throat. "Maybe you didn't catch that this is a race ... and  
you're already losing."  
This was the most pathetic and ridiculous "race" that Luce had ever seen, but it  
didn't stop her competitive edge from coming out.**

Luce: It was pretty pathetic.

Everyone: *laughs*

Arriane: I agree!

Luce: I would hope so! Or something would have to be wrong with you!

Arraine&Luce: *laughs*

Daniel: *just shakes his head*

**"And ... you're still losing," Coach said, chewing on her whistle.  
"Not for long," Luce said.  
She checked out the competition. The guy to her left was sputtering water out of  
his mouth and doing a clumsy freestyle. On her right, a nose-plugged Penn was  
leisurely gliding along, her stomach resting on a pink foam kickboard. For a split  
second, Luce glanced at the crowd on the bleachers. Molly and Roland were  
watching; Arriane and Gabbe were collapsed on each other in an annoying fit of  
giggles.  
But she didn't care what they were laughing at. Sort of. She was off.  
With her arms bowed over her head, Luce dove in, feeling her back arch as she  
glided into the crisp water. Few people could do it really well, her dad once  
explained to an eight-year-old Luce at the pool. But once you perfected the  
butterfly stroke, there was no way to move faster in the water.**

Luce: *smiles thinking back to when she was eight*

**Letting her aggravation propel her forward, Luce lifted her upper body out of the  
water. The movement came right back to her and she started to beat her arms like  
wings. She swam harder than she'd done anything in a long, long time. Feeling  
vindicated, she lapped the other swimmers once, then again.  
She was nearing the end of her eighth lap when her head popped above water just  
long enough to hear Gabbe's slow voice say, "Daniel."  
Like a snuffed-out candle, Luce's momentum disappeared.**

Luce: *slaps a hand to her forehead*

Arraine: *laughs*

Daniel: what?

Luce: *gives Daniel the You-Have-Got-To-Be-Kiding-Me? Look* nothing

**She put her feet down  
and waited to see what else Gabbe had to say. Unfortunately, she couldn't hear  
anything other than a raucous splashing and, a moment later, the whistle.  
"And the winner is," Coach Diante said with a stunned expression, "Joel Bland."  
The skinny kid with braces from the next lane over hopped out of the pool and  
started raising the roof to celebrate his victory.  
In the next lane, Penn kicked to a stop. "What happened?" she asked Luce. "You  
were totally killing him."  
Luce shrugged. Gabbe was what had happened, but when she looked over at the  
bleachers, Gabbe was gone, and Arriane and Molly were gone with her. Roland  
alone remained where the crowd had been, and he was immersed in a book.  
Luce's adrenaline had been building while she swam, but now she'd crashed so  
hard, Penn had to help her out of the pool.  
Luce watched Roland hop down from the bleachers. "You were pretty good out  
there," he said, tossing her a towel and the locker room key she'd lost track of.  
"For a little while."  
Luce caught the key in midair and wrapped the towel around her. But before she  
could say something normal, like "Thanks for the towel," or "Guess I'm just out of  
shape," this weird new hotheaded side of her instead blurted out, "Are Daniel and  
Gabbe together or what?"**

Luce: *slaps her head even harder*

Arraine: *Laughs her ass off*

Daniel: Why would I be with Gabbe?

Luce: You haven't payed attention?

Daniel: yes I have. I just don't get your though process.

Luce: *shakes her head*

**Big mistake. Huge. She could tell from the look in his eye that her question was  
headed right to Daniel.  
"Oh, I see," Roland said, and laughed. "Well, I couldn't really ..." He looked down  
at her and scratched his nose and gave her what seemed like a sympathetic smile.  
Then he pointed toward the open hallway door, and when Luce followed his finger  
she saw Daniel's trim, blond silhouette pass by. "Why don't you just ask him  
yourself?"**

Luce: because I'm kind of a sissy when it comes to these things.

Daniel: No you're not.

Luce: I am inside. I don't really move purposely.

Daniel: I know how you feel.

Luce: *raises her eyebrow*

Daniel: about the not moving purposely.

Luce: Ah

**Luce's hair was still dripping wet and her feet were still bare when she found  
herself hovering at the door to a large weight room. She'd intended to go straight  
into the locker room to change and dry off. She didn't know why this Gabbe thing  
was shaking her up so much. Daniel could be with whomever he wanted, right?  
Maybe Gabbe liked guys who flipped her off.  
Or, more likely, that kind of thing didn't happen to Gabbe.  
**

**But Luce's body got the better of her mind when she caught another glimpse of  
Daniel. His back was to her and he was standing in a corner picking out a jump  
rope from a tangled pile. She watched as he selected a thin navy rope with wooden  
handles, then moved to an open space in the center of the room. His golden skin  
was almost ****radiant****, and every movement he made, whether he was rolling out his  
long neck in a stretch or bending over to scratch his sculpted knee, had Luce  
completely rapt. She stood pressed against the doorway, unaware that her ****teeth****  
were chattering and her towel was soaked.**

Arraine: *snickers*

Luce: shut up

Arraine: make me

Luce: damn

Arraine: I thought so.

**When he brought the rope behind his ankles just before he began to jump, Luce  
was slammed with a wave of déjà- vu. It wasn't exactly that she felt like she'd seen  
Daniel jump rope before, but more that the stance he took seemed entirely familiar.  
He stood with his feet hip-width apart, unlocked his knees, and pressed his  
shoulders down as he filled his chest with air. Luce could almost have drawn it.  
It was only when Daniel began twirling the rope that Luce snapped out of that  
trance ... and right into another. Never in her life had she seen anyone move like  
him. It was almost like Daniel was flying. The rope whipped up and over his tall  
frame so quickly that it disappeared, and his feet, his graceful, narrow feet,were  
they even touching the ground? He was ****moving**** so swiftly, even he must not have  
been counting.**

Arraine: you explain a lot of things in detail

Luce: I didn't write it!

Arraine: its in your point of view

Luce: *glares*

Daniel: its ok. I am most likely doing the same thing with her.

Arraine: I bet you are

**A loud grunt and a thud on the other side of the weight room tore Luce's attention  
away. Todd was in a heap at the base of one of those knotted climbing ropes. She  
felt momentarily sorry for Todd, who was looking down at his blistered hands.  
Before she could look back at Daniel to see whether he'd even noticed, a cold  
black rush at the edge of her skin made Luce shiver. The shadow swept up on her  
slowly at first, icy, tenebrous, its limits indiscernible. Then, suddenly rough, it  
crashed into her body and forced her back. The door to the weight room slammed  
in her face and Luce was alone in the hallway.  
"Ow!" she cried, not because she was hurt exactly, but because she had never  
been touched by the shadows before. She looked down at her bare arms, where it  
had felt almost like hands had gripped her, shoving her out of the gym.  
That was impossible, she'd just been standing in a weird place; a draft must have  
shot through the gymnasium. Uneasily, she approached the closed door and  
pressed her face up against the small glass rectangle.  
Daniel was looking around, like he'd heard something. She felt certain he didn't  
know it was her: He wasn't scowling.**

Daniel: *sighs*

**She thought about Roland's suggestion that she just ask Daniel what was up, but  
quickly dismissed the notion. It was impossible to ask anything of Daniel. She  
didn't want to bring out that scowl on his face.  
Besides, any question she might pose would be useless. She'd already heard all she  
needed to hear last night. She'd have to be some kind of sadist to ask him to admit  
he was with Gabbe. She turned back toward the locker room when she realized she  
couldn't leave.  
Her key.  
It must have slipped from her hands when she stumbled out of the room. She stood  
on tiptoes to look down through the small glass panel on the door. There it was, a  
bronze blunder on the padded blue mat. How had it gotten so far across the room,  
so close to where he was ****working out****? Luce sighed and pushed the door back  
open, thinking if she had to go in, at least she'd make it quick.  
Reaching for her key, she sneaked one last look at him. His pace was slowing,  
slowing, but his feet still barely touched the ground. And then, with one final light-as-  
air bounce, he came to a stop and turned around to face her.  
For a moment, he said nothing. She could feel herself ****blush**** and really wished she  
wasn't wearing such a horrible bathing suit.**

Luce: (singing Within Temptation) " Tell me I'm frozen, but what can I do? Can't tell the reasons I did it for you, It tears me apart…"

Cam: why are you singing?

Luce: It just popped in my head. Within Temptation is an awesome band.

Arraine: who are they?

Luce: *gasp*

Arraine: just kidding! They rock!

Luce: Hell yeah!

**"Hi" was all she could think to say.  
"Hi," he said back, in a much calmer tone of voice. Then, gesturing at her suit,  
said, "Did you win?"  
Luce laughed a sad, self-effacing laugh and shook her head. "Far from it."  
Daniel pursed his lips. "But you were always ..."  
"I was always what?"  
"I mean, you look like you might be a good swimmer." He shrugged. "That's all."  
She stepped toward him. They were standing just a foot apart. Drops of ****water fell****  
from her hair and pattered like rain on the gym mats. "That's not what you were  
going to say," she insisted. "You said I was always ..."  
Daniel busied himself coiling the jump rope around his wrist. "Yeah, I didn't mean you you. I meant in general. They're always supposed to let you win your  
first race here. Unspoken ****code of conduct**** for us old-timers."  
"But Gabbe didn't win either," Luce said, crossing her arms over her chest. "And  
she's new. She didn't even get in the pool."**

Arraine: she's got a point there.

Daniel: yeah I suck at lying.

Luce: yeah you do. *chuckles*

**"She's not exactly new, just coming back after some time ... off." Daniel shrugged,  
giving away nothing of his feelings for Gabbe. His obvious attempt to look  
unconcerned made Luce even more jealous. She watched him finish looping the  
jump rope into a coil, the way his hands moved almost as quickly as his feet. And  
here she was so clumsy and lonely and cold and left out of everything by everyone.  
Her lip quivered.  
"Oh, Lucinda," he whispered, sighing heavily.  
Her whole body warmed at the sound. His voice was so intimate and familiar.  
She wanted him to say her name again, but he had turned away.**

Daniel: Lucinda.

Luce:*sighs* It never gets old.

Arraine: haha I bet it doesn't

Luce: well it doesn't

Daniel: There is something we are missing isn't there.

Luce: Can't say a thing

Daniel: *sighs*

**He hooked the  
jump rope over a peg on the wall. "I should go change before class." She rested a  
hand on his arm. "Wait."  
He wrenched away as if he had been shocked, and Luce felt it, too, but it was the  
kind of shock that felt good.  
"Do you ever get the feeling ..." She raised her eyes to his. Up close, she could see  
how unusual they were. They seemed gray from far away, but up close there were  
violet flecks in them. She knew someone else with eyes like that...  
"I could swear we've met before," she said. "Am I crazy?"  
"Crazy? Isn't that why you're here?" he said, brushing her off.  
"I'm serious."  
"So am I." Danie'?s face was blank "And ****for the record****,"he pointed up at a  
blinking device attached to the ceiling,"the reds do monitor for stalkers." "I'm  
not stalking you." She stiffened, very aware of ****the distance**** between their bodies.  
"Can you honestly say you have no idea what I'm talking about?" Daniel  
shrugged.  
"I don't believe you," Luce insisted. "Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong.  
That I've never in my life seen you before this week."**

Luce: That's the end of the Chapter. Who's next?

Daniel: I am

Luce: *hands book to Daniel*

Arraine: By the way Daniel, that whole stalker thing you pulled, dick move. *scowls*

Daniel: *looks down*

Luce: It's all good. He had a reason

Arraine: And that is…

Luce: Not sayin a word

Arraine: C'mon! please tell us what you know!

Luce: No. not till it's time to.

Everyone: *complains*

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	8. Authors Note

**Sorry Y'all! I will update as soon as I can! There is a lot to write and I cracked my pelvis so I am not in a good moon. I hurt. I am writing every chance I get!**

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while! Sorry, sorry, sorry! I promise to update soon! In fact I will write some more tonight!**

**Thanks!**


	9. Let me get this clear

**Ok I don't like it when people talk bad about me. If you don't like it then don't read it. From what I have seen from my reviews, I'm not that bad a writer. My other stories are better im not gonna lie. I don't really care if you hate it or not. But if you do just tell me what I can do to fix it and I will try. My stories are better in my head than written down I will admit. This story is just a quick one I have been writing in my free time. Nothing special. I love writing and this one is kinda fun. It's suppose to be meaningless and stupid. That's because the characters are sitting down and reading Luce's story together. And yes I will take Luce out of it in the next chapter. If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say it at all. I just need advice. So all you haters can get over it!**


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